[ad_1]
Kepler, one of the most successful, has been disabled this week. Others have recently failed.
After nine years in orbit around the Sun and the discovery of more than 2,600 planets outside our solar system, NASA announced this week that the Kepler Space Telescope had completed its mission.
Imagined 35 years ago, at a time when no planet was known outside the solar system, Kepler was tasked with discovering Earth-like planets of comparable size. rocky and non-carbonous, and far away neither too close nor too far away. too far from your star.
This is the distance at which liquid water could, as on Earth, be present on the surface and therefore able to contain life.
According to Kepler's observations, astronomers now estimate that between 20% and 50% of Earth's visible stars at night will likely have small Earths in orbit at a distance where lakes and oceans can theoretically form.
Like Kepler, several telescopes are currently analyzing different space characteristics and some have scared ground technicians to switch to "safe mode," while others are just starting their own. process of capturing information.
In the latter enters the space telescope James Webb, the youngest. Its mission is to find the first galaxies that have formed in the primitive universe and, according to NASA, will observe through dusty clouds the stars that form the planetary systems. However, his launch has been delayed and the latest information has indicated that it will be until 2021 that his trip to Space
Spitzer was launched in 2003 with the goal of providing a unique infrared vision of the universe and allowing us to observe the regions of space hidden by optical telescopes. It still works, but it is expected that next year it will lose touch and become one of NASA's four major bets in space.
The famous Hubble Space Telescope has resumed normal operation after the failure of an orientation tool. This forced the engineers to put it safe in early October.
One of the telescope 's three gyroscopes broke down on October 5 and the emergency gyro, turned off for seven and a half years, worked but did not work normally.
A gyroscope is a device that measures, maintains or modifies the orientation of the ship in which it is located, in this case the telescope. This gyroscope allows Hubble to stabilize and focus on a target and to get a very clear picture.
On the ground, at NASA's Goddard Center, the engineers turned off and turned on the gyroscope and asked the telescope to perform maneuvers to recalibrate the instrument, which seems to have worked.
The telescope was named in honor of the German astronomer Johannes Kepler and launched in 2009.
He pointed out two constellations of the Milky Way, the Cygnus and the Lyre, with millions of stars in his lens and in extraordinary resolution for the moment of his conception.
In January 2010, he discovered the first five planets, called Kepler-4b, 5b, and so on. But they turned out to be gaseous. The first rocky planet was announced in January 2011, the Kepler-10b.
The first inhabitable planet bears number 22b, which could contain liquid water. And in 2014, finally, the first real cousin of the Earth, number 186f, at 580 light-years.
Thanks to Kepler, we also know that there are more planets than stars in the Milky Way. Most have a size between Earth and Neptune.
A few weeks ago, the fuel fell to a very low level. Kepler has solar panels, but these only power their electronics on board.
The telescope, now off, will remain in its orbit, NASA said. In about forty years, its orbit will bring it closer to Earth, but without running the risk of crashing into it.
On June 11, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope celebrated a decade of using gamma rays, the light form of the highest energy of the cosmos, to study black holes, neutron stars and other objects, as well as extreme cosmic events.
However, earlier this year, researchers discovered a problem in the disc of one of the solar panels. One reason for it to automatically enter safe mode. Fermi, which received the name in honor of Enrico Fermi, Italian-American pioneer of high energy physics and Nobel laureate, experienced its first hardware failure when one of its panels solar is stuck. After that, he was able to continue to sweep the gamma-ray universe.
On October 12, the Chandra X-ray telescope automatically went into safe mode, probably because of a gyroscope problem.
This failure led the space telescope to enter a "security mode" and, on the ground, managed to establish a new configuration allowing it to resume its scientific operations on Sunday, October 21st.
Chandra is 19 years old, more than five years old. In 2001, NASA decided to extend its useful life to 10 years and is expected to continue leading scientific research for several more years.
Chandra's goal, NASA explains, is to detect the emission of X-rays from very hot regions of the Universe, such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around them. black holes.
[ad_2]
Source link
