A balloon the size of a football field will be sent to the frontier of space by the American space agency NASA, with the aim of learning how stars and planets are formed.
In addition to the giant balloon, the mission will also carry a special type of telescope that can detect light that cannot be seen by the human eye.
The balloon used in this experiment will be 400 feet wide after inflation. Apart from the telescope, there will also be a cooling system that will keep the instruments cool.
Named ‘Esthros’, the mission will be launched from Antarctica in December 2023 and will remain at the end of the atmosphere where the ozone layer exists for three weeks.
NASA scientists will be able to control the telescope from the ground and its data can be downloaded for immediate analysis.
Far-infrared wavelengths of light cannot be seen by the human eye, but they can be used to detect the amount and speed of gas in the regions of space where stars are forming.
Basically two goals have been set for this mission. A galaxy named Messier 83 is located at a distance of one and a half million light years from Earth and is the brightest galaxy. Another target is a star called TW Hydra, which has a cloud of dust and gas around it where new planets can form.
The telescope will collect information on star formation and a process known as ‘stellar feedback’. When massive stars break up, they throw their material into space.
Their explosions can also scatter material and coalesce to form new stars. Without stellar feedback, galactic matter and gas cannot combine to form new stars.
NASA experts say their modern computers are unaware of this process. Thanks to the Atheros mission, they will be able to create 3D maps of this process and computer simulations of the galaxy’s evolution.
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2024-08-09 22:40:23
