So far, more than 5.6 thousand of them have been discovered. Exoplanets (as of May 31, 2024), but a few are Earth-like worlds. These are also rocky planets, but many of them lie outside areas that provide habitable conditions similar to ours. The search for Earth 2 continues and NASA plans to intensify these efforts.
NASA has previously developed a telescope (he-goat), and one of its tasks was to search the universe in search of exoplanets. Now the American agency is planning to establish a new observatory whose purpose will be to search for new land. The project is hidden behind a name Habitable Worlds Observatory.
The Habitable Worlds Observatory Telescope is currently in the early planning stages and is expected to take years to complete. Preparations have already begun to work on the appropriate technologies that will be used in the observatory.
NASA awarded grants worth $17.5 million to three companies. They have focus on Next-generation optics research, mission designs, and new telescope features. Work is scheduled to begin in late summer this year.
The design of the new telescope is complex. NASA expects this The HWO will take a decade to develop. For comparison, the James Webb Space Telescope, currently the most powerful observatory of this type in human hands, was built over a dozen years and cost billions of dollars.
The mission of the Habitable Worlds Observatory will be to launch a large telescope into space Observing Earth-like planets Nearby stars that resemble the Sun. The list of potential targets is intended to include At least 25 exoplanets.
Most importantly, the HWO telescope will also be equipped with specialized instruments that allow this Examining the atmospheres of distant worlds for chemical signs of life. The observatory will allow, among other things: search for methane and oxygen. According to NASA, these are difficult tasks because building the necessary solutions represents a major challenge.
To achieve the supposed potential, it is necessary, among other things: building a coronagraph that will be thousands of times more effective than existing ones in blocking starlight. However, the optical system must have a solution that provides this Real estate down to the size of an atom.
Developing such a complex telescope would be a huge and very expensive undertaking. The project is certain to cost billions of dollars. By comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope generated costs of… 16 billion dollars.
NASA added that HWO will be the next amazing observatory after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. It is scheduled to be launched in 2027.
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