Thursday, May 30, 2013

BRITE Constellation Satellite Mission

Each BRITE satellite -- about the size and mass of a car battery -- houses a small optical telescope feeding a CCD detector

BRITE Constellation represents new frontiers in aerospace technology and astrophysical science.

BRITE stands for "BRIght Target Explorer," because the targets in the sky for this mission are the most luminous stars in our galaxy.

It's a "constellation" because there will eventually be six BRITE satellites in orbit, monitoring the sky regularly for years to come.

Each BRITE satellite -- about the size and mass of a car battery -- houses a small optical telescope feeding a CCD detector.

Canadian aerospace technology is at the heart of the BRITE design, and Canadian astronomers have partnered with colleagues in Austria and Poland to make the mission a reality.

Each country is contributing a set of twins to the planned sextuplet of satellites. The first two BRITE nanosatellites were launched in late February, and it's expected all six will be in orbit by the end of 2014.

Focusing on the brightest stars in the sky, visible on a clear dark night with the unaided eye, the tiny BRITE eyes will measure subtle changes in the brightnesses of these stars.

The changes can be oscillations in brightness due to actual physical vibrations of the star, which astronomers translate into the otherwise hidden internal structure through a technique called stellar seismology.

The changes can be due to spots on the stars' surfaces -- bad complexions which alternate between 'breakouts' and 'clear skin', like our Sun's 11-year sunspot activity cycle.

The changes can also be due to ejections of gas from a star's surface, like the Sun's wind and its flares.

Sometimes the changes are not due to the star itself, but caused by a planet passing in front of the star, causing dips in the star's apparent brightness.

BRITE Constellation will capture all these types of changes in hundreds of stars to be monitored, and the mission is expected to discover new planets.

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