space
On January 11, 2026, NASA launched a small satellite that will spend a year watching roughly 20 known exoplanets to study whether their atmospheres contain hazes, clouds, or water.
Pandora is the small NASA satellite launched on January 11, 2026, to spend a year studying roughly 20 known exoplanets. It watches a host star's visible light and a planet's near-infrared light at once, helping scientists figure out whether an exoplanet's atmosphere holds hazes, clouds, or water.
Kepler was an earlier NASA telescope that discovered new planets by watching for tiny dips in starlight, rather than studying atmospheres of already-known ones. TESS scans wide areas of sky to find new exoplanet candidates, a different job from Pandora's atmosphere-focused mission.
Pandora is meant to help astronomers pick the most promising planets, so the far pricier James Webb Space Telescope can focus its limited observing time on the very best targets.
space
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