NASA's hunt for life on other worlds has led them to scour over planets and exoplanets that are light-years away from home. Over the years, they have developed techniques on how to identify life forms from far distances.
One of these techniques is monitoring how starlight affects a planet's atmosphere, critical information for finding signs of life. Now, NASA's probe rocket will be monitoring a nearby star called Procyon A, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor.
Studying Starlight to Gain Insights on a Planet
In studying planets that have different compositions with Earth, scientists use a technology that will allow them to see signs of life. Kevin France at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues designed the Suborbital Imaging Spectrograph for Transition region Irradiance from Nearby Exoplanet (SISTINE) to look at the star of orbiting planets to find life outside the Solar System.
The probe rocket is designed to study the ultraviolet radiation environment around low-mass stars and its effects on the atmospheres of exoplanets. According to NASA, SISTINE uses a spectrograph that separates light into its component parts to measure high-energy radiation from the stars or spectra in wavelengths from 100 to 160 nanometers, a range that can create oxygen.
It was first launched on August 5, 2019, for a 15-minute flight onboard the Black Brant IX sounding rocket that makes a short, targeted flight to space. This will give SISTINE five minutes of observing time but enough to see stars in wavelengths that are inaccessible even to the Hubble Space Telescope.
This year, it is scheduled to launch on November 8 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
SISTINE-2 Mission
In a recent article from NASA, they shared that the SISTINE-2 mission will observe Procyon A located 11.5 light-years away from Earth. It is an F-type star slightly larger, hotter, and brighter than the Sun in the Solar System. Even without planets orbiting, scientists said that studying Procyon A can give insights on F-type stars and their exoplanets in the universe.
"Knowing the ultraviolet spectra of these stars will help us find the most promising star-planet environments with future NASA observatories," France said in the statement.
Like the first mission, it will use its spectrograph and will focus on ultraviolet light at wavelengths of 100-160 nanometers, which are known to produce false-positive biomarkers. The team hopes to assemble a reference spectrum that will help other astronomers interpret biomarkers on exoplanets that orbit around an F-type star.
Moreover, the mission will be testing the enhanced lithium fluoride optical coating to the instrument's mirrors to improve its capability of reflecting UV lights. This will help scientists evaluate whether it is suitable for larger, longer-duration space missions.
SISTINE-2 will also launch on a sounding rocket just like its first mission and will ascend at about 174 miles (280 kilometers) to access the UV light absorbed by the atmosphere and will observe Procyon A for five minutes.
They hope for s soft landing for a faster turnaround for their July 2022 launch from the Arnhem Space Center in Nhulunbuy, Australia. The third mission will observe B, G, and K-type stars as well as the Alpha Centauri, the home to the cool red dwarf star Proxima Centauri.
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