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A small satellite designed to hunt new planets beyond
the solar system recently watched the Earth to capture a picture of California
"City of the stars."
The greater Los Angeles area stands out in these images
d & # 39; ASTERIA,
the Arcsecond Space Telescope for Astrophysical Research, a satellite
not much bigger than a briefcase. ASTERIA is a CubeSat, or a small satellite
composed of cubic units measuring 10 centimeters (4.5 inches) on each side. This
CubeSat is composed of six units.
The images, taken on March 29, reveal a massive grid of
streets of the city and highways. A bright spot near the center of the marks of the first image
the location of the Dodger stadium. (The Dodgers played the Arizona Diamondbacks at
the house that night.) To the northeast, near the darkness of the San Gabriel
Mountains, is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA
Pasadena, California, who built and operates ASTERIA, and the nearby Rose
Bowl Stadium. The enlarged image shows a region of approximately 43.5
square miles (70 square kilometers), with a resolution of about 100 feet (30
meters) per pixel.
Many small satellites in orbit can take superior quality
images of the Earth as this one. But ASTERIA is the only CubeSat in orbit to have
can also search for exoplanets or planets in orbit
stars other than our sun Its main objective was to demonstrate the accuracy of the score
technology in a small satellite.
By pointing with precision, ASTERIA can look at a star during
long periods of time and measure small changes in its brightness. Slight
the decrease in brightness of a star detected by ASTERIA could indicate that a
The planet revolves around the star and passes in front of it. This is called a
transit of the planet. (NASA missions that use or have
used the transit method to find exoplanets include the In transit
Exoplanet study satelliteor TESS,
which launched in 2018, and the recently retired
Kepler Space Telescope.) ASTERIA took these
images of Los Angeles in order to further explore the capabilities of his
embedded hardware.
ASTERIA fulfilled its main missions –
demonstrating that the spacecraft could very accurately point – in January 2018.
ASTERIA is now operating in an extended mission phase including the conduct of exoplanets
science and test new software capabilities.
Engineers will test a navigation on board
system that could allow the satellite to autonomously determine its own orbit
using only the ASTERIA imaging system. This will establish whether a CubeSat
system has the ability to navigate by itself in a low Earth orbit
environment in which GPS services are not available or ground communication is
intermittent.
ASTERIA was developed under the Phaeton
Program at JPL. Phaeton hired people early in the career, under the direction of
experienced mentors, with the challenges of a flight project. The mission is a
collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for
Cambridge. Sara Seager, professor of planetary sciences and physics at MIT, is
the lead investigator of the mission.
Media contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-393-1821
[email protected]
2019-090
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