An artificial star will soon help NASA’s work –

There is only one week left until the most popular stargazing month, August. At this time, the sky is mostly clear, and if we look for a place away from the light pollution of the big city, there is a good chance that we will also see some representatives of the Perseids burn up in the atmosphere.

If we have had a similar experience, we know that the actual stars are not the same. Among them there are different colors, brighter, duller and even just flickering. It depends on their distance from Earth, their size, their type and a number of other factors. If these data are known precisely, it is also possible to deduce how fast the universe is expanding.

In the near future, NASA wants to send a special object to an altitude of 36,000 kilometers above the USA, so that it can use its observation to refine the various testing methods in use.

The mission to launch the artificial star was named the Landolt mission after an astronomer named Arlo Landolt, who is known for his widely used photometric standard, which is used to study the nature of stars to this day. The project is scheduled to start in 2029.

According to a statement from University of Florida scientist Jamie Taylor, the main purpose of the artificial star will be to develop a workable method to determine whether there are oceans on the surface of one of the planets orbiting a star. To do this, you also need to know how much energy the star emits, exactly how far it is from the planet, and a series of other data.

Otherwise, the artificial object will be a CubeSat-type satellite, which will orbit the United States in a controlled orbit for a year and will emit precise amounts of light particles, which will be examined from below with instruments. With the obtained results, they hope to be able to recalibrate the relevant characteristics of known stars and thus more easily identify habitable zones where liquid water can be found.