NASA Deploys Orbital Telescope Designed to Do Something Incredible
Futurism • • general
Key Points:
- NASA's new Pandora telescope, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, has successfully deployed in Sun-synchronous orbit to study exoplanets and their host stars.
- Pandora features a 17-inch lens designed to observe at least 20 exoplanets over a year, aiming to gather detailed data on planets too distant for larger telescopes like James Webb.
- The telescope addresses a key challenge in exoplanet research by monitoring starspots—cool, volatile regions on stars—that can distort atmospheric readings of exoplanets.
- By observing stars continuously and revisiting them multiple times, Pandora will help separate stellar noise from planetary signals, improving the accuracy of detecting atmospheric components such as water vapor.
- This mission is expected
