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New mission NASA Landolt, which will begin in 2029, will orbit an artificial star around Earth to improve measurements of stars and planets. This will improve the accuracy of stellar brightness calculations by a factor of more than ten, helping our understanding of the planets orbiting these stars and providing insight into dark energy.
Landolt mission
NASA has approved a new satellite mission called Landolt, designed to place an artificial star in orbit around Earth. This artificial star will emit light of precisely known brightness, helping scientists more accurately measure the brightness of real stars. These improved measurements will improve our understanding of stars, including distant supernovae, and the planets that orbit them. The $19,5 million mission could also shed light on dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe's accelerated expansion.
Improvement of stellar measurements
"Even with modern instruments, only a few percent are known to measure the true brightness of stars," explains David Ciardi, associate director of NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) at IPAC, the Caltech Astronomy Center. "Landolt will improve these measurements by more than 10 times. Understanding the true brightness of stars will allow us to better understand the stars and, perhaps more importantly, better understand the planets that orbit the stars."
Launch and partnership
The mission, launching in 2029, is led by former IPAC scientist and Caltech alumnus Peter Plavchan (BS '01), who is now an associate professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University in Virginia.
IPAC will be responsible for archiving the mission's data and will contribute to ground support through Caltech's Palomar Observatory. Additional partners include the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a world leader in measuring photon emissions, as well as several other universities. Other CalTech team members include Jessie Christiansen, NExScI principal scientist and NASA Exoplanet Archive project scientist at NExScI, who helped propose the mission.
Tribute to Arlo Landolt and mission goals
This mission, named after the late astronomer Arlo Landolt, who compiled widely used star brightness catalogs in 1973, 1982 and 1992 and who died in 2022, will launch a light source into the sky with a known photon emission rate. The team will observe the light source or artificial star next to real stars to create new star luminosity catalogs. The artificial star will orbit 22 miles above Earth, far enough to appear as a star to telescopes on the ground. This orbit also allows the satellite to move at the same speed as Earth's rotation, keeping it in place over the United States during its one-year primary mission.
