NASAs new exoplanet mission shows 1st images to th...

What’s Happening

Okay so NASA’s new exoplanet mission - called SPARCS - has taken its 1st light images.

It will monitor low-mass stars to see if their planets could be habitable. The post NASA’s new exoplanet mission shows 1st images to the public first appeared on EarthSky. (we’re not making this up)

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The Details

Theres a new space telescope helping to find exoplanets, and its only the size of a cereal box. NASA dropped on , that the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) just took its first images of distant stars.

Specifically, SPARCS is targeting low-mass stars, such as red dwarfs, with its ultraviolet camera. Red dwarf stars are the most abundant type of star in the Milky Way, yet theyre so dim that when we look at the night sky, we cant see any with our eyes alone.

Why This Matters

And many of those dim red dwarfs are home to planetary systems. Astronomers have found many planets orbiting red dwarf stars, including smaller rocky planets like Earth. In fact, scientists estimate that no less than 50 billion low-mass stars have at least one small rocky planet in the habitable zone.

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

Key Takeaways

• The habitable zone is the region around a star where temperatures might allow liquid water to exist on a rocky planets surface.
• These stars are more energetic than our sun, but, with frequent flares blasting radiation into space.
• With this in mind, SPARCS will observe how red dwarfs affect their local systems of planets, and how that could affect their potential habitability.
• SPARCS, a breadbox-sized CubeSat, observed its first stars on .

The Bottom Line

And yet they are home to the majority of rocky planets we know of in the habitable zone. These first light images help to show that SPARCS is performing as expected.

What do you think about all this?