For nearly 30 years Hubble Telescope has been in orbit giving us on Earth amazing photo's and science from beyond our solar system (and within!). Hubble first was launched in 1990 and when they first went to take some awesome photos with it's then uber high tech cameras, all they got was fuzz. Fingers pointed, blame flew until they realized the fault lay in the polishing machines that polished Hubble's lens... Doh! It had polished the lens to useless.
So, with space cowboy dexterity, and the very first mission of it's kind, the Hubble telescope was lassoed by the space shuttle Columbia and then was fixed and put back into commission in 2002.
From then on it's been absolutely incredible photo's and information gleaned by this science instrument in space.
Albeit on earth, other telescopes have also aided in the search for planets outside of our solar system, science instruments like Hubble have been one of the best pieces of science created by huemahnkind.
But Hubble can't and won't last forever.
Enter TESS and the James Webb Telescope.
Launched just last month, the 'Transiting, Exoplanet, Survey Satellite - AKA 'TESS', took it's first test photo last week.
From the NASA website, TESS's mission is, "The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is an Explorer-class planet finder. In the first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey, TESS will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, orbiting a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances. The principal goal of the TESS mission is to detect small planets with bright host stars in the solar neighborhood, so that detailed characterizations of the planets and their atmospheres can be performed.
TESS will monitor the brightness of more than 200,000 stars during a two year mission, searching for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. Transits occur when a planet's orbit carries it directly in front of its parent star as viewed from Earth. TESS is expected to catalog more than 1,500 transiting exoplanet candidates, including a sample of ∼500 Earth-sized and ‘Super Earth’ planets, with radii less than twice that of the Earth. TESS will detect small rock-and-ice planets orbiting a diverse range of stellar types and covering a wide span of orbital periods, including rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars."
Cool video on TESS's orbit and mission:
In conjunction with other telescopes on Earth, TESS will help grow out knowledge on exoplanets, their formation and make up. Do these planets exist in the 'Goldielocks' zone? The zone, like Earth is in, that's not too hot and not too cold, but just right for life to take hold and thrive?
But there's also new hopes for life in not so friendly 'zones' of solar systems.
Recently, data gleaned from the probe Galileo, showed that the water/ice geysers on Europa, orbiting the planet, Jupiter, may have chemical signatures that could show us that life is possible on these 'ice planets' that have liquid oceans beneath miles of ice crust. Likewise, the planet Saturn has an ice planet, Enceladus, and it too is promising.
So, mmissions like TESS, Hubble and ground based telescope arrays are ever searching for more information and proof of life beyond our solar system.
The Next Gen On The Horizon
Probably my most anticipated mission in the near future is the James Webb Telescope. This is like Hubble V.10.0 - It's a monster of a satellite in it's size and capabilities. Now due for a launch in May of 2020, this date has been pushed and then pushed again due to flaws and unforeseen issues that have arisen in it's construction.
The JWT's missions, according to NASA once again, "The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in 2020.
Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.
Webb was formerly known as the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb."
With each new planet found, with each new bit of information we speed closer and closer to learning more about the universe and our place in it. We'll learn which planets will have life on them, maybe even what kind of life. Are their other huemahns in space? Or are they all like 'E.T.' or Jar Jar Binks?
Exciting times are ahead and I'm waiting on the edge of my seat with each one of these probes heading into space or powering up on Earth.
The answers are out there!
So, with space cowboy dexterity, and the very first mission of it's kind, the Hubble telescope was lassoed by the space shuttle Columbia and then was fixed and put back into commission in 2002.
From then on it's been absolutely incredible photo's and information gleaned by this science instrument in space.
Albeit on earth, other telescopes have also aided in the search for planets outside of our solar system, science instruments like Hubble have been one of the best pieces of science created by huemahnkind.
But Hubble can't and won't last forever.
Enter TESS and the James Webb Telescope.
Launched just last month, the 'Transiting, Exoplanet, Survey Satellite - AKA 'TESS', took it's first test photo last week.
From the NASA website, TESS's mission is, "The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is an Explorer-class planet finder. In the first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey, TESS will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, orbiting a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances. The principal goal of the TESS mission is to detect small planets with bright host stars in the solar neighborhood, so that detailed characterizations of the planets and their atmospheres can be performed.
TESS will monitor the brightness of more than 200,000 stars during a two year mission, searching for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. Transits occur when a planet's orbit carries it directly in front of its parent star as viewed from Earth. TESS is expected to catalog more than 1,500 transiting exoplanet candidates, including a sample of ∼500 Earth-sized and ‘Super Earth’ planets, with radii less than twice that of the Earth. TESS will detect small rock-and-ice planets orbiting a diverse range of stellar types and covering a wide span of orbital periods, including rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars."
Cool video on TESS's orbit and mission:
In conjunction with other telescopes on Earth, TESS will help grow out knowledge on exoplanets, their formation and make up. Do these planets exist in the 'Goldielocks' zone? The zone, like Earth is in, that's not too hot and not too cold, but just right for life to take hold and thrive?
But there's also new hopes for life in not so friendly 'zones' of solar systems.
Recently, data gleaned from the probe Galileo, showed that the water/ice geysers on Europa, orbiting the planet, Jupiter, may have chemical signatures that could show us that life is possible on these 'ice planets' that have liquid oceans beneath miles of ice crust. Likewise, the planet Saturn has an ice planet, Enceladus, and it too is promising.
So, mmissions like TESS, Hubble and ground based telescope arrays are ever searching for more information and proof of life beyond our solar system.
The Next Gen On The Horizon
Probably my most anticipated mission in the near future is the James Webb Telescope. This is like Hubble V.10.0 - It's a monster of a satellite in it's size and capabilities. Now due for a launch in May of 2020, this date has been pushed and then pushed again due to flaws and unforeseen issues that have arisen in it's construction.
The JWT's missions, according to NASA once again, "The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in 2020.
Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.
Webb was formerly known as the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb."
With each new planet found, with each new bit of information we speed closer and closer to learning more about the universe and our place in it. We'll learn which planets will have life on them, maybe even what kind of life. Are their other huemahns in space? Or are they all like 'E.T.' or Jar Jar Binks?
Exciting times are ahead and I'm waiting on the edge of my seat with each one of these probes heading into space or powering up on Earth.
The answers are out there!
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