Mini-Hubble will scan dim stars to see if they can support life
It doesn't take hugely expensive space telescopes like the Hubble and future James Webb Space Telescope to hunt for habitable exoplanets . NASA and the University of Arizona will launch a small telescope the size of a cereal box called the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, or SPARCS, in 2021. The aim is to find so-called M Dwarfs, stars 20 times dimmer than our sun, and see if they emit too much radiation to support life on other worlds. The telescope is just 9 centimeters, or 3.6-inchs in diameter, and equipped with a camera and two ultraviolet-sensitive detectors. Most stellar ultraviolet radiation is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, but the orbiting SPARCS, despite its small size, will have a clear view. "This is a mission to the borderland of astrophysics and astrobiology," Evgenya Shkolnik, principal investigator for the SPARCS mission, told ASU. "We're going to study the habitability and high-energy environment around stars that we call M ...