From the mission itself, to the image that was captured, and more!
Join me as we explore The next step in Earth-like Exoplanet discovery: CHEOPS Blurry Images!
There are many space agencies out there in the world right now, and while many go on
their own paths, many of them all try and find certain things to help us understand
space and what's out there.
For the ESA, the European Space Agency, they are following in NASA's (among others) footsteps
and trying to find more Earth-like planets that might just be out there in the universe.
And they're doing that mission via various probes and satellites and crafts.
The ESA’s exoplanet-observer Cheops acquired the first image of its initial target star,
following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020.
The intentionally blurry image is a product of the specially designed telescope optics,
which are deliberately defocused to maximize the precision of Cheops’ measurements and
enable its unprecedented study of exoplanets, or planets in other solar systems.
The acquisition of this image marks a key milestone in the extensive testing phase of
Cheops, the Characterizing ExoPlanet Satellite, before it embarks on its mission to study
planets around nearby stars.
“This is a defining moment for the mission,” says Nicola Rando, ESA project manager for
Cheops.
“To the engineers and scientists across Europe who have worked and continue to work
on Cheops, this image represents the culmination of many years of dedication and effort – designing,
planning, coordinating and building this new and unique satellite.”
It's always good to see a new step taken in the "unveiling" of the universe via technology,
as many upgraded satellites and probes have been launched in recent years to try and map
out space even more, giving hope to many that we might just find another Earth, or at the
very least, a place we can call home after a while.
The image that Cheops took features a stellar field centered on HD 70843, a yellow-white
star located around 150 light years away.
The team responsible for in-orbit commissioning of the satellite selected this star as the
telescope’s first target because of its brightness and its location in the sky, which
made it ideal for testing purposes.
After all, the last thing you'd want to do is go and monitor a particularly tricky star
to observe because then it would skew the results and make you wonder if anything you're
seeing is accurate.
So by doing it this way and ensuring that all the system are functional and are within
the designed parameters, you can go to the next step without issue.
“The first images that were about to appear on the screen were crucial for us to be able
to determine if the telescope's optics had survived the rocket launch in good shape,”
explains Willy Benz, Principal Investigator of the Cheops mission consortium from the
University of Bern, Switzerland.
“When the first images of a field of stars appeared on the screen, it was immediately
clear to everyone that we did indeed have a working telescope.
As noted earlier, the Cheops telescope deliberately delivers defocused images of a target star
onto the detector – a charge-coupled device, or CCD – in order to distribute the light
from each star over many pixels.
This makes the measurements of starlight more precise, as they are much less sensitive to
small differences in the response of individual pixels in the CCD and to variations in the
telescope pointing.
That may seem and sound counter-intuitive, because in the realm of photography you want
to have the cleanest and most detailed image possible, but in this case, blurrier is better.
Especially since when you look at something in space via something like a telescope lens,
it's not exactly accurate as light is traveling through space in order for you to see it,
and thus, things can get distorted as the light travels.
This is one of the reasons that people argue over the shape of the universe, because with
all the light being emitted, it can change how you view said shape.
Before we dive more into Cheops and its finds, be sure to like or dislike the video so that
we can continue to grow and make the best videos possible for you the viewer!
Also, be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss ANY of our weekly videos.
Getting back to the topic at hand in terms of blurry images via Cheops.
Having a precise measurement of the stars’ brightness and its variation is of critical
importance to the scientists striving to learn as much as possible about the planets known
to orbit those stars.
A planet transiting in front of a star in Cheops’ view causes the star to dim – a
barely detectable dip that can reveal key information about the planet’s properties,
most importantly its size.
“Now that Cheops has observed its first target, we are one step closer to the start
of the mission science,” says Kate Isaak, ESA Cheops project scientist.
“This beautifully blurred image carries the promise of a new, deeper understanding
of worlds beyond our Solar System.”
A bold claim, but one that the ESA is willing to back up with the next part of the mission
itself.
Over the coming weeks, teams at the Mission Operations Centre in Torrejón, near Madrid,
Spain, together with colleagues from the Universities of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland, will conduct
an extensive series of tests on Cheops’ instrument and detector to characterize their
in-orbit performance.
The same tests will be used to confirm that the scientific data taken by Cheops is processed
appropriately.
This is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the overall mission of Cheops
itself, which is a bit different than what you might expect.
Launched on 18 December 2019, Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of exoplanets.
Rather than search for new planets, the mission will follow up on hundreds of known planets
in orbit around bright stars, with sizes smaller than Saturn’s, that have been discovered
by other methods.
In short, they're going to try and learn more about the planets that we know are out there,
but haven't detailed in any significant way.
That way we can learn more about their makeup and whether they be possible contenders for
being like Earth and thus whether we can colonize them or not.
Or even just a planet that is truly worthy of study.
As for how exactly this will be determined, Cheops will observe individual stars as a
planet transits in front of them and blocks a fraction of the starlight, using the dip
in the light level to measure the planet’s size with exquisite precision.
By combining these very accurate and precise sizes with existing measurements of planet
masses, it will be possible to determine the bulk densities of large numbers of planets
in the size range between Earth and Neptune, which provide vital clues to the planets’
composition and structure.
This first-step characterization is a critical step towards understanding how these small
extrasolar worlds form and evolve.
You can view this as a multi-step mission of a sort.
Because all of this testing is going to slowly but surely map out the universe, or at least
parts of it, all the while giving us detailed looks at planets that we only know glimpses
of because of how we found them.
And should one of them be a truly Earth-like planet?
Then obviously that's a huge bonus that no one will be mad about finding.
This is what space exploration is as a whole, it's not just looking out at space as a large
picture, it's zooming in bit by bit in order to discover what is truly out there, and what
are all the things that fill up the picture that is the universe.
And whether it's NASA, the ESA, or other nations programs, the goal is still the same, to find
out something new about space so that the picture gets filled in, and Cheops is going
to be a huge part of that mission going forward.
Now, if you're wondering what the team meant by saying that wanted to find out how "extrasolar
worlds form and evolve", it's simple, there are worlds out there that are rather mind-boggling
in their composition or how they "act" on a regular basis.
For example, there are worlds out there that have volcanoes that spew out ice, and there
are planets that rain down glass...sideways, and so on and so forth.
These things feel like they're part of a sci-fi movie, but they're very much real, and yet
how exactly the planets got this way in the first place is a bit of a mystery.
Sure, we know how they act NOW, but how did they go from basic rock formation into what
we see them as now?
Believe it or not, despite all we've learned about the universe and how planets form in
the general fashion, we still know very little about the various processes that help turn
planets from one thing to another.
One thing that is a huge factor is obviously the sun that the planet orbits around.
If it's too close to the sun the planet will face extreme heat and everything that comes
with it.
Or, if it's too far away from the sun it'll be too cold to do various things.
Also, there is the fact that the orbit of the planet and whether it's a fully rotating
planet or a tidally locked one plays a huge factor in things as well.
But even knowing that does not fill in all the details and steps on how planets form
out in the universe, and that's why craft like Cheops is aiming to get dimensions and
characterizations about planets so that they can truly go and be studied so that potentially
these questions can be answered.
Whether they will be or not is a bit up for debate obviously, but taking steps towards
answers versus just guessing is a must.
And that's why missions such as these are so important.
Plus, imagine the discoveries that could potentially be made!
We've already found an incredible slew of planets across the stars, Cheops may find
the next one that boggles our minds and calls for more research.
"Like what for example? you might say.
Well, how about 55 Cancri E?
The planet itself was actually a star in the beginning of its life.
It was part of a "Binary System", which meant there were two stars in the area.
Over the course of some time the partner star tried to consume it.
But since the star had carbon inside of it, the process couldn't be done completely.
The enormous strain and pressure of the partner star instead turned 55 Cancri e into one made
of diamonds...mostly.
it's about one-third "pure diamond", with other materials making up the rest.
55 Cancri e is twice the size, and eight times the mass of Earth.
So when you do the math on the planet's size and the value of the diamond at current pricing,
you get 26.9 nonillion dollars worth of diamonds.
Or, if you head 57.3 light years away from Earth, you would find a planet called GJ 504b,
and it is in fact a planet that is 100% pink.
Or to be more colorfully accurate, it's a shade of Magenta.
So, the obvious question is, "How does a planet get wrapped in a shade of pink/magenta?"
That would be because while it is a fully formed planet, the process that made it a
planet hasn't "burned through" yet.
Meaning, the heat that helped make the planet is still around on GJ 504b.
So as a result, the planet...is pink.
Oh, and it should be noted for the record that this planet is actually the size of Jupiter.
So it's not just a pink planet, it's a LARGE pink planet.
Still not enough for you?
How about Hat-P-7B?
This is a planet that quite literally rains Rubies and Sapphires, two of the most precious
gems on Earth.
Can you believe it?
There's a planet where it rains gemstones!
Or if you want a planet that is truly out of whack in terms of looks, go to Wasp 12
b.
The planet is actually egg-shaped due to the massive amount of gravity that the sun it
encircles exhumes, and this is only one part of the strangeness of the planet.
Because the gravity isn't just elongating the planet, it's killing it.
Worse, it's killing the planet slowly.
So in about 10 million years or so, the planet won't be around anymore because the gravity
will cause it to die.
So as you can see, there are a LOT of strange worlds out there, and there are just as many
worlds that are deemed "Earth-like" or "SuperEarth" in form that we are finding and wanting to
learn more about.
Cheops is just another cog in the machine to help us flesh all the information out that
we can in order to learn more about the universe at large.
Plus, with everything going on in the world right now via the global lockdown, imagine
hearing something about space via a new planet discovery that can help change things?
It might be a motivational thing that gets us to try and really get out of this lockdown
so that we can get to space sooner and start colonizing places like the moon or Mars.
Now sure, you look at this blurred picture from Cheops and you think, "oh, that's not
that impressive".
But it's not meant to be per se.
It was a first step in a long mission of science and exploration.
The next couple sets of pictures?
Those will likely be the ones that help change things potentially, and it's those that we
should be looking forward to seeing and exploring.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did YOU think about the first images from Cheops?
Do you think that these future findings will help explain the universe more?
What do you think this special telescope will find as it looks out into space?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!