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3860 - PLANETS
- the search is on? There is a whole new era of telescopes, in
space and on the ground, set to revolutionize astronomy. From black holes to the search for life and
beyond, all of astronomy's greatest mysteries are under assault. Astronomers
are using tools that range from the
biggest space telescopes to arrays of tiny radio telescopes scattered across a
desert on Earth.
------------------ 3860 - PLANETS - the search is on?
- Starting from the smaller scale, future
astronomical facilities will bring about the first detection of life on another
planet in the coming years. Exoplanet astronomers are searching for planets
around other stars that host conditions in which life can likely thrive.
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- Recognizing life and understanding a
planet's conditions are really complicated tasks, though. Not only do we need
to look for the actual signs of life, known as biosignatures, but we also need
to understand the context in which we spot those signs, the planet's
environment, even including the behavior of the star it orbits.
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- Looking ahead, the major “Habitable Worlds
Observatory” (HWO), planned for the 2030s, will be able to peer deeper into
these planets' atmospheres and give us an even better shot of finding life.
Whereas JWST mainly uses transits, a planet crossing in front of its star, to
observe Earth-size exoplanets, the Habitable Worlds Observatory will take a
more direct approach, imaging the planets themselves, even down to Earth-like
sizes.
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- Observatories here on Earth also promise
new insights into the search for life. A new class of observatories known as
"Extremely Large Telescopes" or ELTs are under construction in Hawaii
and Chile. These mammoth projects will have mirrors around 98 feet (30 meters)
in diameter, which is three times larger than any other optical telescope in
existence.
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- Although JWST, the HWO and other
space-based observatories are powerful tools, they come with hefty price tags,
so astronomers will rely on complementary ground-based telescopes like they
always have, however, now those ground-based telescopes will be much more
powerful.
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- The coming decades also promise new ways of
seeing, or rather, hearing the universe, including the ability to detect more
types of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space-time.
"LIGO” [the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory] is
currently the only gravitational wave detector to have made a direct
observation of gravitational waves. However, LIGO is only looking at a small
fraction of the whole spectrum of gravitational waves, there are plenty of
signals it's not able to observe.
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- For these other gravitational waves,
distinguished by their lower frequencies and longer-lasting signals,
astronomers will need to wait for the space-based detector known as “LISA”, the
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Like
a massive LIGO detector, LISA will keep three satellites in a huge and perfect
triangle as they all orbit the Earth together.
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- Astronomers will use another technique
known as “pulsar timing”. Pulsars are spinning dead cores of large stars that
each shoot two beams of light into space like a cosmic lighthouse. Pulsars are
often used to time events in the cosmos because they're so predictable that
their time-keeping would only be off by 100 nanoseconds over an entire decade.
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- As gravitational waves pass through
pulsars, astronomers can spot the tiny changes in the pulsar's regular rhythm.
This method promises to reveal colliding pairs of black holes in which each
partner is around a billion times the mass of our sun.
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- Tens of radio telescopes across the globe,
from the Deep Synoptic Array in California to the MeerKAT telescope in South
Africa and beyond, are undergoing upgrades and working together to gather the
data needed for pulsar timing to reveal the impact of gravitational waves from
supermassive black holes.
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- These projects are only a fraction of the
ideas astronomers have for the future of space exploration. But whatever the
technology, from ELTs to mega-sized space telescopes and beyond, scientists
hope they will help answer our most fundamental questions: where did we come
from, and are we alone? It's a historic time for astronomy, and for humankind
as a whole.
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February 4, 2023 PLANETS - the
search is on? 3860
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--------------------- --- Sunday, February 5, 2023 ---------------------------
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