The conflicts and quarrels inevitably begin in a closed team or collective. It has long been recognized by sociologists. So maybe that’s why in the news we constantly hear about a fight, a conflict and even about a war! Are we, the people of planet Earth, not a closed isolated collective?! Perhaps, in order to minimize our strife and civil tension, we need to set our minds and energy not on each other, but to… the wide open vastness of space — the territory that begins a little over 60 miles above our heads.
While geopolitical games and battles for resources are going on in our world, there is no lack of space, energy, light and heat up there. And asteroids with precious metals and minerals that exceed Earth’s reserves regularly passes by our planet. In addition to those yet unattainable resources, the space is full of unsolved mysteries. And, perhaps, one day, the disclosure of the secrets of space will save humanity.
What we’ve got so far
The Kepler space telescope launched in 2008. It has collected data for more than 300,000 stars and planetary systems through 2018. Some of the discovered planets are somewhat similar to our Earth. There is a chance some of those have the atmosphere.
Just in the first three years of work, the Kepler telescope made important and even sensational discoveries. For example, planets the size of the Earth were found. By the beginning of 2014, it had discovered over 3,500 planet candidates, more than 1,000 of those were confirmed by various scientific research teams.
Kepler space telescope — Wikipedia (wikipedia.org)
After the shutdown of the Kepler telescope, the TESS telescope was launched in 2018. TESS’ primary mission now is to narrow the search area down to the closest vicinity, no further than 200 light-years away. Supposedly, there are about 20,000 exoplanets within those limits — the planets similar to our Earth.
TESS Telescope achieved even more impressive results. Here are the most outstanding ones:
- Almost immediately after the launch a group of astronomers reported the first exoplanet discovered by the telescope.
- Six months later, TESS discovered three planets at a small distance from the star TOI-270. It is a calm star which simplifies the subsequent search for possible traces of life on its planets and satellites.
- A month later astronomers reported the discovery of several planets around the star GJ-357, the one which is located within the outer boundary of the habitable zone (a zone of space with conditions closest to those our planet is in) and just 31 light-years away from us.
- In early 2020, using the TESS telescope, scientists discovered an Earth-like planet in the constellation Dorado, potentially habitable and 100 light-years away from Earth.
- Overall by 2022, the number of exoplanet candidates found amounted to 5210, and 177 of those were already confirmed by observational data from ground-based telescopes.
- For comparison, the Kepler telescope discovered just over 3,600 exoplanet candidates in its first three years of operation.
It turns out that by the joint efforts of public and private observatories and research centers almost 9,000 planets were found amongst 300,000 stars in the last 15 years. Great achievements! One and a half planet per day… wait a minute, is that a lot? It could be compared as if Christopher Columbus were discovering America by one and a half square miles a day — we would not have a New World map still! At this rate, we will remain in our small closed world, continuing to growl at each other, which will cause our resources to ran out even faster.
How do we speed up the space research?
Looking at the sky through a telescope is far from a profitable sphere. Such work has not paid off currently. Mainly, space research is sponsored by governments for the sake of arms race, and by billionaires for commercial purposes. They also dictate what, where and how to research. There are few independent space laboratories, and they exist on voluntary donations from citizens. However, that’s the laboratories that are interested in the broad exploration of space in the interests of the whole society. Those are the ones who shares their discoveries to the broad public willingly.
Teams of astronomers around the world study data from telescopes, including the Kepler and TESS telescopes, analyze the nature of the star radiation, determine the size and age of the planets. This is a huge amount of work to systematize the data and refine the sky charts. That will be carried out over the next years. As a result, it will be possible to determine the most promising points of interests, and more accurately plan subsequent space expeditions.
Patronize a Star
You can take part in this global space research program and feel at the community forefront of explorers of vast cosmos.
Patronize a Star campaign is made for you to support space exploration activities.
The easiest way for you to support space exploration is to share the below and let other people know about the campaign.
The other way to support is to choose one of the brightest stars in one of 88 constellations and patronize it. Your “patronage” will be perpetuated forever in the blockchain. And as a certificate you will receive an NFT — a unique picture of a constellation with your star marked.
And who knows, maybe at some point in the future the life will be found around the star you chose!
The technical details and phases of the campaign will be issued in the next few days at Patronize a Star subreddit.
