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A report published in Congress and released today (September 5th) by the first scientific advisory group in the United States revealed that NASA should focus its research budget on exoplanets on large space and terrestrial telescopes.
The new report from the National Academy of Sciences feeds a decennial priority-setting system into the astronomy community that guides NASA's long-term strategy.
"The most important message is that this is a very special moment in human history," David Charbonneau, astronomer at Harvard University and co-chair of the committee responsible for the new report. "Humans have wondered if there are hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, of the lives of other planets." [Children’s Artwork Flying to Space Aboard European Exoplanet Satellite (Photos)]
If we choose to make the right investments, he continued, "In fact, we could learn the answer to this question in the next 20 years."
And according to the new report, these investments are clear, with seven key priorities, including the construction of a space telescope powerful enough to directly view the exoplanets; the construction of large ground telescopes; and continue the development and launch process of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).
"In this report, they really doubled the strategy of the big mission," Jessie Christiansen, who studies exoplanets at Caltech and the NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute, told Space.com. "These will be incredibly important and expensive efforts, but they could achieve something we are excited about," she said – like finding and studying small rocky planets around stars like our own sun.
Since the report focuses on instruments that could work 15 or 20 years later, it only briefly deals with ongoing projects, such as the recently launched exoplanets survey satellite, which began collecting end-July data and short-term projects. such as the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), which is currently scheduled for launch in 2021. The committee expressed its support for these projects.
Astronomers have generally expressed support for Webb's scientific goals, but this telescope has earned a reputation for overspending and being late. Christiansen fears that the focus of the new report on such ambitious projects may be problematic if they also see cost and time issues. Big projects like Webb, she said, "eat only everyone's lunch," and their failures have encouraged some scientists to focus on smaller projects. But this is not the case for the authors of the new report.
"It's a very bold strategy to say that we should put all our eggs in one basket," said Christiansen, adding that while there are potential benefits to the approach, there are also potential high risks. "If we burned too many bridges with previous missions and it does not work, then we are a little more helpless," Christiansen said. She was surprised not to see more in the report the tiny, relatively inexpensive satellites called CubeSats and how they could contribute to the science of exoplanets, although the leaders said that these small missions would also be useful.
But the committee behind the report thinks that the big prices on bold missions are worth it. "The costs of these telescopes and the missions we are talking about, while substantial, are certainly not out of reach of what our society can do," said B. Scott Gaudi, an astronomer at Ohio State University. Chairman of the committee, told Space.com.
These expensive projects are ambitious space telescopes such as the LUVOIR and the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, each of which would be powerful enough to separate the tiny light from a planet from the Earth's surface. powerful reflections of his star. They would also include funding for ground-based giant telescopes, such as the Thirty Meter telescope (probably in Hawaii) and the Giant Magellan telescope (in Chile).
Thayne Currie, astronomer of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, did not focus on direct imaging and was not involved in the new report that focuses on this technique, which is currently extremely difficult. "[Direct imaging] is intriguing because seeing, it's believing, "he told Space.com. "A lot of people, when you tell them we do not directly detect most planets, it's kind of a scratcher."
Detections of exoplanets currently tend to spot the planets by the slight oscillation of their gravity in the position of a star (radial velocity method) or the slight decrease in luminosity caused by the sliding between the star and the telescope. method). On the other hand, the report focuses on detection methods requiring a higher level of technology: direct imaging and microlens, which uses optical trick to enlarge distant space zones and will be possible with the WFIRST telescope, which launch is scheduled for 2025.
Direct imaging also provides additional information about the planet itself and what may be happening on its surface. "Once you can see the planet, you can do all kinds of interesting things," like studying its orbit, starting to understand its composition, and perhaps spotting signs of time or rotation, Pat McCarthy, vice president of Giant's Magellan Telescope operations have not been involved in the new report, told Space.com. "It really opens the world." [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
Although the report emphasizes the appeal of the determination of livability and the quest for life, it strives to strike a balance between these issues and other issues related to exoplanets in general. "The committee has taken a very holistic view of our exoplanet strategy," said Gaudi. "We do not believe that it is possible to go out and identify life without understanding the context of this particular planet."
Although the report focuses primarily on science, it is also directed to scientists responsible for exoplanet research, which require interdisciplinary collaboration and support for research grants. The report also discusses the encouragement of diversity and the prevention of discrimination and harassment, but offers no concrete recommendations on these topics.
In all, the new report paves the way to significantly strengthen studies on exoplanets over the next two decades, with potentially significant consequences. "For the first time in the history of humanity, we can now, if we wish, answer the question of whether life is on other planets," said Gaudi.
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