NEW YORK: A group of British scientists are trying to raise £50m to launch a spacecraft from Surrey to monitor some of the Milky Way’s exoplanets.Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than our sun and there are thought to be tens of billions in the galaxy.
The Twinkle proposal, announced at the university here, with a mission to check out at least 100 exoplanets in the Milky Way.
The mission, explained to Astronomy Now, would use Twinkle’s main instrument, an infrared spectrograph, to examine planets like rocky super-Earths (in the mass range up to ten times that of Earth) and “hot Jupiters” (gas giants near their star). Large planets near bright stars might even yield enough data to map their clouds and surface.
The Twinkle project’s media release notes that its lead scientist is professor Giovanna Tinetti, who worked on both the Hubble and Spitzer space telescope projects.
“Knowledge of the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres is essential for understanding whether a planet was born in the orbit in which it is currently observed or whether it has migrated from a different part of its planetary system” the press release continues.
The makeup of atmospheres – driven by collisions with other objects, the loss of lighter molecules, volcanic activity or even the presence of organic molecules or life – gives strong hints about the history of a planet and its ability to sustain life.
