A first-of-its-kind NASA mission aims to put a new"star" in the sky by the end of the decade to help solve a wide range of the universe's biggest mysteries, scientists have announced.
The fake star will be placed exactly 22,236 miles above Earth's surface, according to a statement by researchers. This will put the satellite in a geosynchronous orbit around our planet, meaning its speed will match Earth's spin so it will appear to be fixed in place in the night sky. For the first year of the mission, researchers plan for this fixed point to be somewhere above the U.S., Plavcham said.
The project will likely have a team of around 30 people and is estimated to cost around $19.5 million, Plavcham said. The main goal of Landolt is to help astronomers calculate the absolute flux calibration of distant stars. This is the measurement of the rate of light particles, or photons, being emitted by stars, which is currently hard to determine accurately. This is partly because atmospheric interference alters the light observed by ground-based telescopes, but also because there are no real reference points for absolute flux calibration, apart from the sun.