What To Know
- Recently, an American university has announced its collaboration with NASA in the development and sending of a small artificial star into orbit around the Earth by the end of the decade.
- The latter will consist of placing a small artificial star, a kind of mini-Sun, into orbit by 2030 with the aim of reproduce supernova radiation or galaxies as we perceive it from Earth.
- Let us emphasize the fact that the announcement of the launch of a satellite acting as a mini-Sun in orbit around the Earth can be frightening.
Recently, an American university has announced its collaboration with NASA in the development and sending of a small artificial star into orbit around the Earth by the end of the decade. Why is the American space agency interested in this project?
A project with NASA to reproduce the radiation of supernovae
The American space agency (NASA) is often at the heart of space news because of its many projects. Recently, a new mission called Landolt has seen the light of day. The latter will consist of placing a small artificial star, a kind of mini-Sun, into orbit by 2030 with the aim of reproduce supernova radiation or galaxies as we perceive it from Earth. This project has been explained in detail in a press release published by George Mason University in Fairfax (United States) on June 10, 2024. According to the project leaders, this mission in collaboration with NASA should make it possible to better identify the different nuances of interpretation scientists in reading the observation results. Furthermore, another objective will be to determine to what extent the Earth’s atmosphere plays the role of a filter with regard to radiation, among other things.
Credits: George Mason University
More precision in observations and calculations
“This mission focuses on measuring fundamental properties used daily in astronomical observations. This could impact and change the way we measure or understand the properties of stars, surface temperatures and the habitability of exoplanets.”said Eliad Peretz, deputy principal investigator of The Landolt Mission. Scientists added that the mission should allow locate an observation more precisely in a 3D sky. Remember that currently, the “redshift” method is used to calculate the distance between the Earth and a galaxy (or a supernova). Indeed, as light travels in the vacuum of space, the waves have tendency to elongate and shift in the visible spectrum towards red. However, this technique has a fairly relative precision in calculating distances, namely a few light years. Let us emphasize the fact that the announcement of the launch of a satellite acting as a mini-Sun in orbit around the Earth can be frightening. However, the researchers specified that the device would not be no bigger than a shoe box. So there is no reason to worry about this mission, especially since the lasers facing Earth will be a hundred times too weak to be visible to the naked eye, so that only NASA telescopes will be able to observe their radiation.
