- Pandora is a small-satellite mission, designed to study exoplanets from Earth’s orbit. The construction of the spacecraft bus, which powers the telescope, has just been completed.
- The Pandora mission will analyze the atmospheres of at least 20 exoplanets. It will use newly-designed detectors to more easily sample the light signals passing through the planets’ atmospheres.
- The mission is scheduled to launch sometime this fall. It will act as a “little brother” to the Webb space telescope.
How well can we analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets, or worlds orbiting distant stars? NASA’s upcoming Pandora space telescope is designed specifically for that purpose. And the mission is now one step closer to re
Mission scientists at the University of Arizona announced the successful completion of the bus on January 15, 2025, at the 245th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Pandora exoplanet telescope reaches milestone
Elisa Quintana is Pandora’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She said in a statement:
This is a huge milestone for us and keeps us on track for a launch in the fall. The bus holds our instruments and handles navigation, data acquisition and communication with Earth. It’s the brain of the spacecraft.
Co-investigator Daniel Apai at the University of Arizona Steward Observatory and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory added:
Although smaller and less sensitive than Webb, Pandora will be able to stare longer at the host stars of extrasolar planets, allowing for deeper study. Better understanding of the stars will help Pandora and its ‘big brother,’ the James Webb Space Telescope, disentangle signals from stars and their planets.
Pandora was selected as part of NASA’s inaugural call for Pioneer mission concepts in 2021. These were small-scale astrophysics missions greenlighted for further concept development.
Pandora, our newest mission to study the atmospheres of at least 20 known planets outside our solar system, is one step closer to launch with the completion of the spacecraft bus!
Congratulations to the team on reaching this major milestone!
More:https://t.co/JRYMo4BjHV pic.twitter.com/wj1q6amRD6
— Dr. Nicky Fox (@NASAScienceAA) January 19, 2025
How Pandora will probe alien atmospheres
So Pandora will study the atmospheres of at least 20 exoplanets. It’ll use what astronomers call the transit method to “disentangle,” as its team says, the light from the star from that of its planet. A transit is when a planet passes in front of – or transits – its star as seen from Earth. Using this method, the scientists will be able to analyze light coming from the 20 stars, and their planets, separately. This analysis is expected to reveal which gases or other materials are in the planets’ atmospheres, by determining what scientists call their chemical fingerprints.
When astronomers speak of chemical fingerprints, they’re referring to the unique pattern of lines in the spectrum (the rainbow array of colors) derived from the star-and-planet light. The spectrum reveals specific molecules that are present. Essentially, it provides a unique identifier for the chemical composition of the light, in a way analogous to human fingerprints.
Pandora and spectroscopy
Spectroscopy has been a powerful tool in astronomy for over a century. So, what makes Pandora special? It was designed specifically to help compensate for a known problem in these kinds of observations. That is, the light coming from the star is mixed with – and can interfere with – the starlight that passes through the planet’s atmosphere. Apai explained:
In 2018, a doctoral student in my group, Benjamin Rackham – now an MIT research scientist – described an astrophysical effect by which light coming directly from the star muddies the signal of the light passing through the exoplanet’s atmosphere. We predicted that this effect would limit Webb’s ability to study habitable planets.
Separating the light signals of stars and planets
Since the star and its planets are so far away, the light from the star itself will always overwhelm the light signal passing through the planet’s atmosphere. To get useful information about the planet’s atmosphere, astronomers have to tease out the planet’s light signal from the starlight. That’s not an easy task, but Pandora is designed to help.
Pandora will capture a star’s optical and near-infrared spectra at the same time. It’ll do so while also obtaining the transiting planet’s near-infrared spectrum. Then, astronomers will combine all the data, allowing them to separate the light signal of the star from the light signal of the planet. In addition, Pandora also has an advantage – lacking in other telescopes such the Webb Space Telescope – in that it can observe its target star-and-planet systems for extended time periods within a single observing session. Each observation session will last 24 hours. And each of the 20 (or more) will be observed 10 (or more) times by Pandora.
Exoplanets are incredibly far away, but astronomers can now study some of their atmospheres using advanced telescopes like Webb, and soon, Pandora. Video via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Pandora exoplanet mission will launch in late 2025
So, Pandora is an exciting mission! And, so far, everything seems to be going smoothly ahead of its launch sometime this fall. Karl Harshman, who is the Mission Operations Manager at the University of Arizona Space Institute, said:
We have a very excited team that has been working hard to have our Mission Operations Center running at full speed at the time of launch and look forward to receiving science data. Just this week, we performed a communications test with our antenna system that will transmit commands to Pandora and receive the telemetry from the spacecraft.
It will be interesting to see what Pandora finds!
Bottom line: The spacecraft bus for the Pandora exoplanet telescope is now completed. Pandora will analyze the atmospheres of at least 20 exoplanets after it launches in late 2025.
Read more: Some TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets could have stable atmospheres
Read more: Eavesdropping on alien signals between exoplanets
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