REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Aviation Agency and Space The United States (NASA) announced plans to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) probe. The probe will be removed NASA into space in May 2025.
The probe probe is an uncrewed scientific space exploration mission that leaves Earth and explores space. The IMAP probe has a mission to capture very small dust particles flowing into the solar system from interstellar space.
With launch probe IMAP It is hoped that scientists can study the cosmic constituent elements that have not yet been revealed. From their findings, scientists will also study the large bubble created by the sun known as the heliosphere.
The heliosphere surrounds the solar system, protecting Earth and other planets from incoming cosmic radiation from outside the solar system. The IMAP probe will carry 10 science instruments for in situ (directly at the original observation location) and remote observations.
One of the instruments is called the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX) which is large in the shape of a drum. IDEX is designed to capture and analyze tiny dust particles from space that penetrate the heliosphere and enter the solar system.
“(Dust particles) are small packages of information from the past and from very far away places,” said Scott Tucker, IDEX project manager at the University of Colorado, Boulder, quoted from the page Space, Tuesday (23/1/2024).
Previously, scientists had thought that dust particles ‘interfered’ with accurate distance measurements to stars. However, it was later discovered that the particles held valuable information about the formation of galaxies, molecular clouds and planets.
These cosmic specks form in stars and are thrown into space in exploding stellar deaths known as supernovae. It contains valuable information about star formation and other processes as the particles travel through interstellar space.
“So, even though their morphology changes as they travel through space, stardust particles are still the closest we have to understanding the original building blocks of the solar system,” said IDEX principal investigator and professor in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at UC Boulder, Mihály Horányi.
Capturing these particles is not easy, because they are only a millionth of an inch in size and move at a speed of about 160 thousand kilometers per hour. The probe must pick up very fast, large particles as well as smaller, slower particles and measure them with the same instrument.
The IMAP probe’s primary destination is Lagrange Point 1, about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. Once there, IDEX will open a 51 centimeter wide opening to capture passing dust. Researchers say it resembles a humpback whale that eats krill shrimp.
When dust particles hit IDEX, they will evaporate into an “ion cloud” that the instrument will analyze, including their chemical makeup. During its two-year operational period, the IMAP probe is estimated to collect several hundred dust particles. Because dust particles are very sparsely distributed in the solar system.
Last week, the IDEX science instrument along with a plaque engraved with the names of the 87 members of its design team were delivered to the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, US. Next, the instrument will be installed on the IMAP probe.
2024-01-23 08:58:16
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