NASA's Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) isn't searching for stars or planets. Instead, the telescope is searching for dust, something space is full of.
The reason for this search? NASA hopes to find stars with the least amount of dust for potential further study of their systems in the hunt for Earth-like planets.
Stardust might seem magical, but when searching for planets, it often gets in the way. Telescopes image planets by using their light and breaking it up into spectra. The colors of the spectra tell us about a planet's chemical composition and offers information as to whether that planet is capable of sustaining life. Stardust is often brighter than planets, though, and often disrupts these observations.
"Imagine trying to view a firefly buzzing around a lighthouse in Canada from Los Angeles," says Denis Defrère of the University of Arizona. "Now imagine that fog is in the way. The fog is like our stardust."
(Photo : Large Binocular Telescope Observatory) NASA's Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer
So the LBTI's task is to measure dust around specific stars and find those stars with the least amount of dust. Then another instrument will observe the planets in that star's habitable zone, which is the area that's not too far away and not too close to the star that allows the planet to have liquid water on its surface. This will help us find more planets similar to our own, and, possibly, even those that have alien life.
We've looked for dust before with other telescopes, but the LBTI is more sensitive and can get a more accurate measurement. In its first tests around a star called eta Corvi, it found that the star had 10,000 times more dust than our solar system. This test also showed that the dust was closer to the star than previously estimated, sitting between it and its habitable zone.
Basically, this means that if we wanted to look at potentially habitable planets in eta Corvi's system, we probably wouldn't see them well. This tells scientists to focus their planet-hunting efforts elsewhere.
LBTI will continue its search for three years with its main mission of finding stars that have 10 times less dust than our solar system. We'll focus our future planet-hunting efforts on those solar systems and eventually get unprecedented views of other planets out there like our own.
"Kepler told us how common Earth-like planets are," says Phil Hinz, principal investigator of the LBTI project at the University of Arizona. "Now we want to find out just how dusty and obscured planetary environments are, and how difficult the planets will be to image."
[Photo Credit: NASA/Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)]
