ESA PLATO: 34 European space telescopes will investigate one million stars

This is what the planet-hunter PLATO could look like. 

The image shows a concept presented by Thales Alenia Space. 

Credit: ESA

The exploration of planets around stars other than the Sun, known as extrasolar planets or 'exoplanets', is one of the most exciting topics of 21st century science.

One of the key goals of this research is to discover and learn the properties of Earth-like worlds in the Sun's neighbourhood.

ESA, the European Space Agency, will do this in preparing a new space mission named PLATO.

The mission's launch is scheduled for 2024, and firm discoveries of Earth-like planets at Earth-like distances from stars similar to our Sun will be produced after three years of observational data have been collected.

ESA's Science Programme Committee voted for PLATO at its regular meeting in Paris on 19th and 20th February, 2014, where it was one of five proposed space projects for a so-called "M" mission.

Not a single Earth-like exoplanet in a habitable zone around a star similar to our Sun has been found and characterized yet. PLATO will be a pioneer in finding new worlds for humanity to explore.

The PLATO Science consortium is led by Don Pollacco from the University of Warwick who comments

"This is fantastic news for Europe, PLATO will allow the first systematic survey of nearby planets for indications from advanced life forms (as well as slime)."

"A few years ago this would have been science fiction and now its coming to pass as science fact."

The UK also has major roles in the instrument itself supplying the CCD sensors (e2V Technology and UCL), much of the image processing software (Cambridge) and Public Outreach (Open University).

Heike Rauer

The PLATO mission itself is led by Dr Heike Rauer at DLR, the German Aerospace Center. "PLATO will begin a completely new chapter in the exploration of extrasolar Planets" Dr Rauer confidently predicts.

"We will find planets that orbit their star in the life-sustaining 'habitable' zone: planets where liquid water is expected, and where life as we know it can be maintained." she continued.

PLATO will measure the sizes, masses, and ages of the planetary systems it finds, so detailed comparisons with our own Solar System can be made.

"In the last 20 years more than one thousand exoplanets have been discovered, with quite a few multi-planetary systems among them", Rauer explains.

"But almost all of these systems differ significantly from our Solar System in their properties, because they are the easiest-to-find examples."

"PLATO firmly will establish whether systems like our own Solar System, and planets like our own Earth are common in the Galaxy."

This is a concept image of Plato by EADS Astrium, ESA's preferred supplier for space technology. 

PLATO, is an acronym for PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars.

PLATO will find planets through the periodic dimming of the detected starlight caused by a planet orbiting in front of the star, blocking PLATO's view of a fraction of the starlight.

PLATO will also measure tiny changes in detected starlight caused by small vibrations in the host stars, performing so-called astroseismology.

Just as in seismology of the Earth, these vibrations reveal the interior structure of the vibrating body. Astroseismology allows us to learn the age of the vibrating star and the planets orbiting around it.

A new type of space telescope
ESA's PLATO is a completely new type of space telescope: it will use an array of telescopes rather than a single lens or mirror.

PLATO will use top quality cameras, and will have the advantage of observing continuously from space, without the interruption of sunrise, or the blurring caused by the Earth's atmosphere.

This will allow PLATO to discover planets smaller than Earth, and planets at distances from their host stars similar to the Earth-Sun distance.

So far, only a few small exoplanets are known at star-planet distances comparable to or greater than Earth's.

Unlike previous missions, PLATO will focus on these planets, which are expected to resemble our own Solar System planets.

European Southern Observatory's European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)

ESA will take on a leading role in the search for extrasolar planets

PLATO is a lively and vigorous European collaboration, many European research institutions and hundreds of European researchers are working together, with scientists from all over the world completing the team.

The catalogue of potentially habitable planets provided by PLATO will be the basis for follow-up measurements to confirm discoveries of new planets, using the ESO's E-ELT, or the next generation of large space telescopes, like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

With PLATO, Europe will be leading the search for habitable exoplanets.

So far only a few exoplanets have had their mass, radius and age determined precisely. This is needed to properly describe a planet.

"The observation of planets in many different states of their evolution will give us clues for the past and the future of our own planetary system", Dr Rauer remarked.

"By no means do we know all about the youth of our Solar System."

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ESA Integral & XMM-Newton: Black Hole Wakes up and devours Dwarf Star

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Astronomers have watched as a black hole woke up from a decades-long slumber to feed on a low-mass object – either a brown dwarf or a giant planet – that strayed too close.

A similar feeding event, albeit on a gas cloud, will soon happen at the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way Galaxy.

The discovery in galaxy NGC 4845, 47 million light-years away, was made by ESA’s Integral space observatory, with follow-up observations from ESA’s XMM-Newton, NASA’s Swift and Japan's Maxi X-Ray Monitor on the International Space Station.

Astronomers were using Integral to study a different galaxy when they noticed a bright X-ray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-of-view.

Using XMM-Newton, the origin was confirmed as NGC 4845, a galaxy never before detected at high energies.

Along with Swift and MAXI, the emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year.

Marek Nikolajuk

“The observation was completely unexpected, from a galaxy that has been quiet for at least 20–30 years,” says Marek Nikolajuk of the University of Bialystok, Poland, lead author of the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

By analysing the characteristics of the flare, the astronomers could determine that the emission came from a halo of material around the galaxy’s central black hole as it tore apart and fed on an object of 14–30 Jupiter masses.

This size range corresponds to brown dwarfs, substellar objects that are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen in their core and ignite as stars.

However, the authors note that it could have had an even lower mass, just a few times that of Jupiter, placing it in the range of gas-giant planets.

NASA SOFIA: Through the Looking Glass

The NASA logo on Bldg. 703 at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., is reflected in the 2.5-meter primary mirror of the SOFIA observatory's telescope.

SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is an airborne observatory, built to complement the Hubble, Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes, as well as major Earth-based telescopes.

SOFIA features a German-built 100-inch (2.5 meter) diameter far-infrared telescope weighing 20 tons mounted in the rear fuselage of a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft. (See SOFIA at DLR) It is one of the premier space science programs of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

SOFIA is a joint program between NASA and the DLR, the German Aerospace Centre.

Image Credit: NASA/Tom Tschida

NEO's and killer Asteroids: US interstellar defense shield

killer-space-rocks-americas-interstellar-defense-shield

Pan-Starrs/Brett Simison

The end of the world is coming but we’re prepared for it.

Astronomers in Haleakala, Hawaii have announced that the Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) telescope, PS1, is fully operational. Pan-STARRS will search for killer asteroids, supernovae (exploding stars) and other objects.

The facility in Hawaii boasts one of the largest digital cameras in the world, a 1,400 megapixel (1,400,000,000 pixels) device that can photograph and map one sixth of the sky every month. Pan-STARRS will allow astronomers to track any potential threats to the Earth.

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NASA'S Spitzer Sees The Cosmos Through 'Warm' Infrared Eyes

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is starting a second career and taking its first shots of the cosmos since warming up.

The infrared telescope ran out of coolant May 15, 2009, more than five-and-one-half-years after launch.

It has since warmed to a still-frosty 30 degrees Kelvin (about minus 406 degrees Fahrenheit). New images taken with two of Spitzer's infrared detector channels - two that work at the new warmer temperature - demonstrate the observatory remains a powerful tool for probing the dusty universe.

The images show a bustling star-forming region, the remains of a star similar to the sun, and a swirling galaxy lined with stars.

Shortwave Channels
"The performance of the two short wavelength channels of Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera is essentially unchanged from what it was before the observatory's liquid helium was exhausted," said Doug Hudgins, the Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Spitzer's Sensitivity
"To put that in perspective, that means Spitzer's sensitivity at those wavelengths is still roughly the same as a 30-meter ground-based telescope. This breathtaking image demonstrates Spitzer will continue to deliver world-class imagery and science during its warm mission."

Cygnus Region
The first of three images shows a cloud bursting with stars in the Cygnus region of our Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer's infrared eyes peer through and see dust, revealing young stars tucked in dusty nests.

Planetary Nebula NGC4361
A second image shows a nearby dying star -- a planetary nebula called NGC 4361 – which has outer layers that expand outward in the rare form of four jets.

Spiral Galaxy NGC4145
The last picture is of a classic spiral galaxy called NGC 4145, located approximately 68 million light-years from Earth.


All Stars are equal
"With Spitzer's remaining shorter-wavelength bands, we can continue to see through the dust in galaxies and get a better look at the overall populations of stars," said Robert Hurt, imaging specialist for Spitzer at NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "All stars are equal in the infrared."

Background
Since its launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Aug. 25, 2003, Spitzer has made many discoveries. They include planet-forming disks around stars, the composition of the material making up comets, hidden black holes, galaxies billions of light-years away and more.

Exoplanet's first light
Perhaps the most revolutionary and surprising Spitzer finds involve planets around other stars, called exoplanets. In 2005, Spitzer detected the first photons of light from an exoplanet. In a clever technique, now referred to as the secondary-eclipse method, Spitzer was able to collect the light of a hot, gaseous exoplanet and learn about its temperature.

Later, more detailed studies revealed more about the composition and structure of the atmospheres of these exotic worlds.

STIS Overhauled on Hubble (HST)

Engineers revived the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), a 12-year-old instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, this week.

The instrument, which was repaired during the last shuttle mission to the telescope in May (imaged), was likely hit by a charged particle in early July, sending the instrument into standby, or 'safe', mode.

One of the detectors on STIS, used for about half of its observations, is now operational. But NASA's Hubble team is still studying an anomaly that affects two other detectors on the instrument. STIS can be used to hunt for black holes by studying the motions of speedy stars and gas clouds. (Image: NASA)

Giant Soap bubble found floating in Space: New Planetary Nebula

The "Cygnus Bubble" nebula may actually be a cylinder that is being seen from one of its ends. This image was taken with the Kitt Peak Mayall 4-metre telescope in Arizona (Image: Travis A. Rector/U of Alaska Anchorage/Heidi Schweiker/NOAO)

IT LOOKS like a soap bubble or perhaps even a camera fault, but the image at right is a newly discovered planetary nebula.

Planetary nebulae, which got their name after being misidentified by early astronomers, are formed when an ageing star weighing up to eight times the mass of the sun ejects its outer layers as clouds of luminous gas (see Why stars go out in a blaze of glory). Most are elliptical, double-lobed or cigar-shaped, evolving after stars eject gas from each pole (see a gallery of the nebulae).

Dave Jurasevich of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California spotted the "Cygnus Bubble" while recording images of the region on 6 July 2008. A few days later, amateur astronomers Mel Helm and Keith Quattrocchi also found it.

The bubble, which was officially named PN G75.5+1.7 last week, has been there a while. A closer look at images from the second Palomar Sky Survey revealed it had the same size and brightness 16 years ago. Jurasevich thinks it was overlooked because it is very faint.

"It's a beautiful example," says Adam Frank of the University of Rochester, New York. "Spherical ones are very rare." One explanation is that the image is looking down the throat of a typical cylindrical nebula. However, it is still remarkably symmetrical, Frank says.

Centauris A: Enormous Galaxy found

This composite image compares the radio glow of an enormous galaxy called Centaurus A to a full Moon.

The white dots in the sky are not stars but other sources of radio emissions that are smaller, or more distant than Centaurus A.

The foreground antennas are the Australia Telescope Compact Array , which captured the radio data used to make up the image.

(Image: Ilana Feain, Tim Cornwell & Ron Ekers (CSIRO/ATNF) / R. Morganti (ASTRON) / N. Junkes (MPIfR) / Shaun Amy, CSIRO.)