China is preparing to launch a new space mission, dubbed Earth 2.0. This mission aims to find exoplanets out there that might be habitable by humans, although getting there is another matter.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences said the satellite for this mission was in the final design stage. If approved by the relevant parties, it will be immediately produced and the target is flown by Long Mach rockets by the end of 2026.
As quoted by us from the Independent, Thursday (14/4/2022) the satellite will have 7 telescopes, which will observe outer space from a distance. Six telescopes will observe the constellation Cygnus-Lyra previously studied by the Kepler telescope.
The Chinese telescope will try to find exoplanets, as planets are located outside our Solar System, with a focus on hunting for new planets whose conditions are suitable for humans to inhabit.
"Our satellites can be 10 to 15 times more powerful than the Kepler telescope in terms of space surveying capacity," said Jian Ge, the astronomer who led this ambitious mission.
This telescope will detect if a distant star changes its brightness, which may be due to an exoplanet passing through it. The large number of telescopes can observe a much wider space than a single telescope on Kepler.
The Chinese satellite is designed to be able to see 1.2 million stars in a single observation. The seventh telescope will be used to detect planets that do not orbit any stars.
So far, there are about 300 scientists deployed by China to work on this project to search for exoplanets. That's not enough, more experts will be recruited later.