Terrestrial Planet Finder

ToSeek · #1 (**permalink**) 12-May-2004, 05:41 PM

Two Architectures Chosen for Terrestrial Planet Finder

In short:

1. Approx. 5-meter visible-light telescope with coronagraph.
2. Multiple 3-4 meter infrared telescopes doing interferometry.

ToSeek · #2 (**permalink**) 30-September-2005, 05:49 PM

NASA Takes Giant Step Toward Finding Earth-Like Planets

Quote:

Are we alone in the universe? Are there planets like Earth around other "suns" that might harbor life? Thanks to a recent technology breakthrough on a key NASA planet-finding project, the dream of answering those questions is no longer light-years away.

On a crystal clear, star-filled night at Hawaii's Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, NASA engineers successfully suppressed the blinding light of three stars, including the well-known Vega, by 100 times. This breakthrough will enable scientists to detect the dim dust disks around stars, where planets might be forming. Normally the disks are obscured by the glare of the starlight.

Engineers accomplished this challenging feat with the Keck Interferometer, which links the observatory's two 10-meter (33-feet) telescopes. By combining light from the telescopes, the Keck Interferometer has a resolving power equivalent to a football-field sized telescope. The "technological touchdown" of blocking starlight was achieved by adding an instrument called a "nuller."

This setup may eventually help scientists select targets for NASA's envisioned Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. The success of those potential future missions, one observing in visible light and one in infrared, depends on being able to find Earth-like planets in the dust rings around stars.

Manchurian Taikonaut · #3 (**permalink**) 30-September-2005, 06:24 PM

NASA's TPF could become one of the most fantastic mission in the future.
http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/library/ipff/ipff17.html
Planet Imager

However I've a feeling that this could become a joint mission as the Europeans have also been thinking about this idea since Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz found planet 'Bellerophon' around 51-Pegasi
Darwin Flotilla cluster - to detect and analyse Earth-like worlds
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/obj...objectid=31241
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMZ0E1A6BD_index_0.html
Given the ambitious nature of both projects, NASA and ESA may collaborate on the final mission like their Soho and Cassini-Huygens project

publiusr · #4 (**permalink**) 30-September-2005, 07:55 PM

I remember an old NOVA program on Peg that they do not rebroadcast.

Launch window · #5 (**permalink**) 28-December-2006, 02:03 PM

Northrop Grumman Concept Uses Shade to Find New Planets

http://www.space.com/spacenews/busin...ay_061204.html

With an estimated price tag of around $425 million, the New Worlds Observer would cost a fraction of the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a multibillion-dollar pair of planet-hunting telescopes that NASA has been talking about for years. The agency recently decided to put that idea on indefinite hold while it finishes other major space telescope projects, like Webb, already in development.

ToSeek · #6 (**permalink**) 28-December-2006, 08:17 PM

ToSeeked

Launch window · #7 (**permalink**) 25-April-2007, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToSeek

ToSeeked

Should have know

This latest discovery is making all the news
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?p=974869
Earth-like planet found around star Gliese581, 20 light years away

ToSeek · #8 (**permalink**) 01-February-2008, 04:27 PM

Conjoined space telescopes could see alien worlds

Quote:

A pair of infrared telescopes attached together in space could determine the chemical makeup of alien planet atmospheres at a fraction of the cost of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), which has been delayed indefinitely, a new study says.

TPF would have used a technique called interferometry, combining the light from several space telescopes flying in formation to spot Earth-like planets circling other stars. But the mission's likely cost of several billion dollars, combined with daunting technological challenges, led NASA to postpone it indefinitely in 2006.

"It is pretty clear in most people's minds that TPF isn't going to happen in 20 years or more," William Danchi of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, US, told New Scientist.

Danchi has been studying a simpler and cheaper alternative to TPF called the Fourier Kelvin Stellar Interferometer (FKSI), a concept he and his colleagues first proposed in 2003. TPF's postponement has given new impetus to the idea and Danchi's team recently posted a paper online pointing out the merits of this and similar concepts in a category they call the Small Prototype Planet Finding Interferometer (SPPFI).

A key challenge for TPF was the need to fly several telescopes in very precise formation. An SPPFI would involve just two telescopes attached together by a truss, eliminating this problem.

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