The mission was named after astronomer Alro Landolt, who created widely used catalogs of stellar brightness since 1973 and passed away in 2022. "His last name is famous in the whole astronomy community," University of Hawaii associate astronomer and professor Daniel Huber told Voice of America. "The Landolt standard star… everyone knows what that is." The team will compare the known brightness of the artificial star to its much more distant counterparts to create new stellar brightness catalogs. While it may not be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, it can be seen through a telescope. By studying the brightness of distant stars, researchers are also hoping to study the rate of the expansion of the universe, which could shed light on dark energy, one of the biggest mysteries facing astronomy today.
Comments
Post a Comment