NASA's Landolt Mission to Enhance Precision in Star Brightness Measurement

Jonathan Gagne, a scientific advisor at the Montreal Planetarium, adjunct professor at the Universite de Montreal, and member of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), is among the team of experts from 12 institutions, primarily in the United States, contributing to this mission.

"Being a part of this space mission along with brilliant experts by contributing to target selection and data analysis is an exciting prospect," said Jonathan Gagne.

The mission is named after astronomer Arlo Landolt, known for his influential catalogues of stellar luminosities from the 1970s to the 1990s. It will deploy lasers calibrated on a CubeSat small satellite orbiting at 36,000 kilometers. These lasers will create "artificial stars" with precisely known brightness, aiding ground-based telescopes in refining their measurements of stellar brightness for numerous stars in major astronomical catalogues.

Accurate measurement of star brightness is crucial for resolving many astronomical mysteries. "The impact the Landolt mission will have in different areas of astrophysics, notably in exoplanet characterisation and in measuring the accelerating expansion of the Universe, will be particularly interesting," added Jonathan Gagne.

Technological advances have rendered old calibrations, performed in 1995 by the Space Telescope Science Institute using white dwarf models, the main source of uncertainty in stellar luminosity measurements. The Landolt mission aims to resolve these issues, paving the way for new discoveries and a deeper understanding of the Universe.