The European Space Agency has officially announced the approval of the construction and launch of a new space telescope ARIEL, which will study the atmospheres of exoplanets. The launch of the telescope will have to take place sometime in 2028.
"The main task of this mission will be to search for relationships between the composition of the atmosphere of the planets and the conditions under which they are born. Other space telescopes are sharpened only for the search for new exoplanets and an estimate of their size and mass. ARIEL will help us understand what they are made of, how they form and how they evolve, "commented the head of the mission, Giovanna Tinetti.
Since Kepler has already discovered over 4000 different exoplanets, astronomers have been thinking about whether it's time to start building tools that will allow analysis and evaluation of the suitability of life on these worlds, and help in finding traces of life in the atmosphere these planets.
The existing and even planned terrestrial and space telescopes do not have sufficient sensitivity and resolution power to study atmospheres even in the nearest, hot and large exoplanets. NASA and the European Space Agency have long been thinking about the creation of new space telescopes, which will be designed specifically to search for traces of life and assess the habitation of other worlds. One of the first such telescopes will be ARIEL. About this project worth 450 million euros became known two years ago, but now it has received official approval. To date, over its implementation, scientists and engineers from several EU countries, as well as other countries of the world, are working.
During the mission, as scientists hope, ARIEL will study the atmosphere of more than 500 exoplanets, similar in their climate not to Earth, but to Venus. During the years of Kepler's work and ground-based telescopes, several hundred such planets were discovered, so scientists have long wanted to know how Earth's analogues can turn into such scorched worlds.
The main feature and at the same time the advantage of ARIEL in front of other telescopes will be that the device will be able to receive all the necessary data on the composition of the atmosphere of a particular planet in just one pass through the star disk. This will significantly accelerate both research and analytical work - some exoplanets, located at a great distance from us, make only one revolution in a few years.
Scientists note that such worlds are unlikely to contain life, but explain that their study will help us to understand in more detail what distinguishes the Earth from other planets, and to find out what conditions are necessary for the birth and maintenance of life. All this will ultimately accelerate the search for Earth twins with the help of newer telescopes, among which, for example, will be the same TESS.
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment