A written report requested by Congress has recommended that NASA should look into building a Modern quad telescope to calculate for Earth - alike exoplanets .
This includes answering “ whether our Solar System is a rare phenomenon or if life story live on planet other than Earth , ” astatementfrom the National Academies said . To do this , they recommend that NASA should result “ a large direct imagination mission – an sophisticated outer space telescope – capable of studying dry land - like exoplanets orbiting principal similar to the Sun . ”
These reports are not just notional ideas – they can dictate NASA insurance policy going forwards , as the agency can use them to quest funding from Congress . In the2010 Decadal Survey , for exercise , the National Academies placed the Wide - Field Infrared Survey Telescope ( WFIRST ) as a in high spirits priority , which recentlyavoided being scrapped , and could help trace for other worlds .
Exoplanet science has certainly come a long manner in the preceding decade . Thanks to the Kepler scope , launched in 2009 , we ’ve found thousands of worlds outside the Solar System . Now we require to meditate some of these globe in close detail .
The recently launch Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ) will help usfind more , while advanced observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) will enable us to study these worlds more tight . But take direct images of exoplanets could offer a whole newfangled perspective .
The National Academies advises that NASA should look into using acoronagraphto make this possible . This would block out the lighter of a upstage star , enable us to well look at the planet in orbit . But actually go steady the planets is another thing owing to their distance . There aresome proposalson the table for how this might be done .
There ’s little dubiousness , though , that we now possess the means to respond some pretty unsounded questions about the universe . And one of those , the possibility of other life being out there , seems like a pretty worthy question to direct .
“ It is strange whether this generation will be the first to learn that life is common throughout the wandflower , or the first to discern hints of a cosmic lonesomeness , ” said the account . “ What we do know is that we can be the first with the technological and scientific power to answer the interrogation , if we so choose . ”
