NASA Plans To Put Artificial Star In Earth’s Orbit
NASA is preparing for an unconventional mission launch featuring a compact payload, comparable in size to a toaster and equipped with eight lasers. According to a report from Live Science, this device aims to simulate stars and other cosmic phenomena such as supernovas. Its purpose is to direct laser beams towards ground-based instruments.
The initiative, known as Landolt and costing $19.5 million, seeks to enhance the accuracy of stellar measurements for scientists. Experts believe it could also contribute to the study of dark energy, a theoretical form of energy postulated to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion.
“Even with today’s advanced instruments, measurements of stars’ true brightness remain uncertain by a few percent,” stated David Ciardi, deputy director of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute and an astronomer at Caltech. “Landolt promises to improve these measurements by more than tenfold.”
The mission represents a significant step forward in astronomical research and could provide invaluable insights into fundamental cosmic mysteries.
🚨 By 2029, NASA plans to place an artificial star in Earth's orbit to accurately calibrate ground-based telescopes. pic.twitter.com/IuuZCK7V0r
A first-of-its-kind NASA mission aims to put a new “star” in the sky by the end of the decade to help solve a wide range of the universe’s biggest mysteries, scientists have announced.
The Landolt NASA Space Mission aims to send an artificial star satellite into orbit around Earth by “early 2029,” Peter Plavchan, an astronomer at George Mason University in Virginia and the Landolt mission’s principal investigator, told Live Science in an email.
The satellite will be “about the size of a proverbial breadbox” and will be equipped with eight lasers that will enable it to mimic almost any type of star or supernova from across the cosmos when viewed by ground-based telescopes, Plavchan added. This will help astronomers improve how they study the real versions of these objects.
