FAME to gaze at the stars.Howdy neighbors! If all goes according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. plan, astronomers 5 years from now will be getting a lot more familiar with 40 million of the closest stars in our galaxy. A new spacecraft, set for launch in 2004, will chart the position, velocity, brightness, and distance of Milky Way Milky Way, the galaxy of which the sun and solar system are a part, seen as a broad band of light arching across the night sky from horizon to horizon; if not blocked by the horizon, it would be seen as a circle around the entire sky. stars up to 8,000 light-years from the sun. That reach is 25 times that of any previous mission. By measuring the location of the stars 20 times as accurately as any other craft has, FAME will search for other solar systems and improve estimates of the size and age of the cosmos. It will also help elucidate the nature and distribution of the invisible material, called dark matter, that pervades the universe. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. announced funding for the 5-year mission, known as FAME (Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (or FAME) is an astrometric satellite designed to determine with unprecedented accuracy the positions, distances, and motions of 40 million stars within our galactic neighborhood. ), last month. Searching for telltale wobbles in the motion of stars as they move across the sky, FAME will deduce the presence of unseen planets and failed stars known as brown dwarfs The first free-floating brown dwarf discovered is Teide 1 in 1995. The first brown dwarf discovered that orbits a star is Gliese 229B, also discovered in 1995. The first brown dwarf to have a planet is 2M1207, discovered in 2004. . Because the craft can find planets that orbit at great distances from their parent stars, it may uncover evidence of entire planetary systems, rather than just single, massive planets that tightly circle their parents. To scan the sky, FAME will shift position using a lightweight solar sail rather than rocket fuel (SN: 8/21/99, p. 120). |
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