NASA’s Pandora mission is set to study the atmospheres of alien planets when it launches this fall. The small satellite aims to provide in-depth study of at least 20 known planets orbiting distant stars in order to determine the composition of their atmospheres, especially the presence of hazes, clouds, and water.
This data collected will be used as a foundation for interpreting measurements by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and future missions that will search for habitable worlds. How exactly will it study the atmospheres of these exoplanets? Well, astronomers can sample an exoplanet’s atmosphere when Pandora passes in front of its star as seen from our perspective, an event called a transit. A small section of the star’s light skims the atmosphere before making its way to us, enabling it to interact with atmospheric substances, and their chemical fingerprints become imprinted in the light.
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This is a huge milestone for us and keeps us on track for a launch in the fall. The bus holds our instruments and handles navigation, data acquisition, and communication with Earth — it’s the brains of the spacecraft,” said Elisa Quintana, Pandora’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
