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The European Space Agency (ESA) has given the green light to the world’s first space telescope – dubbed the planet hunter – to study the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system.
The telescope’s mission is to examine the links between a planet’s chemistry and its environment by plotting approximately 1,000 known planets outside our solar system – known as exoplanets.
The information will provide scientists with a complete picture of what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they will evolve.
The Ariel (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey) survey has undergone a rigorous review process throughout 2020 and is now scheduled to launch in 2029.
With funding from the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), UK research institutes – including UCL, Cardiff University and the University of Oxford – are playing a vital role in the mission by providing leadership, bringing expertise, hardware and vital software and shaping its goals.
The RAL Space, the Technology Department and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Astronomical Technology Center also offered essential support.
Once in orbit, Ariel will quickly share her data with the general public, inviting space enthusiasts and budding astronomers to use the data to select targets and characterize stars.
Spectrographs aboard the observatory will study the light filtering through a planet’s atmosphere as it passes through the face of its host star, revealing chemical fingerprints of gases enveloping the body.
The instruments will also try to refine estimates of a planet’s temperature.
Ariel will be able to detect the signs of well-known ingredients in the atmosphere of the planets such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane.
For a select number of planets, it will also perform a thorough investigation of their cloud systems and study seasonal and daily atmospheric variations.
Professor Giovanna Tinetti, principal researcher for Ariel at UCL, said: “We are the first generation able to study planets around other stars.
“Ariel will take this unique opportunity and reveal the nature and history of hundreds of different worlds in our galaxy.
“We can now take the next step in our work to make this mission a reality.”
About 4,374 worlds have been confirmed in 3,234 systems since the first discoveries of exoplanets in the early 1990s.
This mission will focus on planets that are unlikely to host life as we know it, from extremely hot to temperate, gaseous to rocky. It will also analyze planets in orbit close to their parent stars and those of different masses, particularly those heavier than a few Earth masses.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “Thanks to government funding, this ambitious UK-led mission will mark the first large-scale study of planets outside the solar system and enable our leading space scientists to answer critical questions. on their formation and evolution. “
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