NASA is working on an ambitious new mission that will send a state-of-the-art 2.5-meter telescope high into the stratosphere aboard a balloon the size of a football stadium. The US space agency announced this on Thursday. ASTHROS (short for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths), willWavelengths of lightobserve things that are not visible from Earth. The launch is scheduled for December 2023 from Antarctica, where the balloon will drift on air currents over the continent.
ASTHROS uses a telescope to observe wavelengths of light
ASTHROS will observe far infrared, or that is, light with wavelengths much longer than what is visible to humans. That means it has to reach an altitude of about 40 kilometers - about four times higher than commercial aircraft. That's still below the limit of space (about 100 kilometers above Earth's surface), but it will be high enough to observe wavelengths of light that are blocked by Earth's atmosphere, NASA says.
An onboard instrument will measure the movement and speed of gas around newly formed stars. The mission will explore four main targets, including two star-forming regions in the Milky Way. It will also map the presence of two types of nitrogen ions, which can "reveal places where winds from massive stars and supernova explosions have reshaped the gas clouds within these star-forming regions," NASA said.
Through a process called stellar feedback, theStar formation is hindered or blockedbecome. On the other hand, stellar feedback can also cause material to clump together and accelerate star formation. The team hopes to learn more about how stellar feedback works and offer new information that will improve computer simulations of galaxy evolution.
The start is planned for December 2023
The team recently completed the design of the observatory's payload, including the telescope that captures the light and subsystems such as cooling and electronic systems. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission, will begin testing these subsystems in early August to ensure they function as intended.
Balloon missions not only have the advantage that they...cost less than space missions, but the time between planning and deployment is also shorter, according to NASA. Balloon missions offer the opportunity to overcome unknown technical or operational challenges and help future missions make the best use of these technologies.
“Balloon missions like ASTHROS are riskier than space missions but provide high reward at low cost,” JPL engineer and project leader Jose Siles said in the press release. “We are aiming for astrophysical observations that have never been attempted before. The mission will pave the way for future space missions by testing new technologies and training the next generation of engineers and scientists.”
Here you can see the whole thingNASA press releaseread.
