The ARIEL mission will study 1000 exoplanets, a complicated task that requires precise scheduling. Can it succeed? A new study says yes.
We found our first exoplanets orbiting a pulsar in 1992. Since then, we’ve discovered many thousands more. Those were the first steps in identifying other worlds that could harbour life.The ESA’s ARIEL mission will be a powerful tool.
ARIEL will address several questions in exoplanet science. It’ll explore exoplanet composition, the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and the physical processes that shape exoplanet atmospheres. Earth formed the same way exoplanets do: from a protoplanetary disk. But the evidence for life’s beginnings is long gone from Earth’s geological record. Observing terrestrial exoplanets can help answer the question of life’s origins. If ARIEL can show us how physical and chemical environments on planets similar to Earth evolved, we can get a de facto glimpse of early Earth, when life began.
This graphic shows the difference between transits and occultations using exoplanet WASP-189 b as an example. When a planet passes in front of its star as seen from Earth, the star seems fainter for a short time. This phenomenon is called a transit. When the planet passes behind the star, the light emitted and/or reflected by the planet is obscured by the star for a short time. This phenomenon is called occultation.
But ARIEL must balance more than transits, occultations, and phase curves. Other operations like maintaining the spacecraft’s orbit and auxiliary observations are also part of the scheduling equation. ARIEL’s instruments need periodic recalibration by observing bright G-type stars. Calibration could take up to 300 hours per year, about 3% of the mission. Station-keeping operations will take about four hours per month or 50 hours per year. That adds up to approximately 0.6% of the mission.
This figure shows the sky positions of ARIEL’s potential targets in three tiers. Having targets scattered across the entire sky is beneficial for the scheduling of observations. Credit: Edwards et al. 2019.
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