Enormous shade in space
A star shade is a giant shade that is positioned in front of a space telescope. This huge artifact is intended to block the light coming from a star, to have better viewing perspective of the planet or planets orbiting that star. This artifact is the size of a baseball diamond and it has its own propulsion system. It was designed based on Japanese origami art.
Planets orbiting distant stars
In the present, scientist have discovered that there exist many planets orbiting Stars; however, some stars are extremely bright, Often theirbrightness outshines the reflection of the planet, so the planet is not easily studied.
To counteract this inconvenience, astronomers have come up with the idea that if the light coming from a star can be blocked, then they could more easily see the planet's features.
Searching for life on other planets
To date, there are over 3,000 confirmed planets discovered outside of the solar system, someof them closely resembling earth planets. Scientists believe that the discover of earth-as if planets might be probable in the near future. With this in mind, engineers are designing new technologiesfor attaining this objective.
What is a star shade?
This piece of artifact is a spacecraft specially designed to fit on the tip of a rocket sent to space. The folding designed which was taken from the artworks of Japanese origami; allow it to be folded like ahandheld fan.
Once in outer space, it´s supposed to unfold, taking its actual size (the size of a baseball diamond) and block the light coming from stars. This will allow telescopes to capture the dim light reflected off the surface of planets.
As to May 10, 2016, NASA´s Kepler Space Observatory alone has discovered over 1,000 new exoplanets; however, over 3,000exoplanets have been confirmed by other detection technologies. Astronomers believe that finding close to prefect earth-like planets is just a matter of finding the right technology to be deployed in space in cooperation with other capable technologies.
