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Planet-Hunting Observatory Being Assembled
Default.cfg writes: "The telescope system for NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility arrived February 20 at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., where it will be integrated with the spacecraft. The system, called the cryogenic telescope assembly, contains the telescope, liquid helium cooling tank and three science instruments. It was shipped on February 19 from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., where it was built.
The Space Infrared Telescope Facility, scheduled to launch on January 9, 2003, will study the early universe and hunt for planet-forming regions in dust disks around nearby stars. It will also detect objects by looking for the heat they emit in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The Space Infrared Telescope Facility is the fourth and final mission under NASA's Great Observatories Program, which includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Chandra Advanced X-ray Observatory. The observatory is also the first new mission of NASA's Origins Program, which will study the formation of galaxies, stars, planets and life, and seek to answer the questions: Where did we come from? Are we alone?"
Well, to start with, we've no idea if our planets are representative of the overall planet population or not. Not understanding that point makes it hard to really put our planet formation theories in context, as well as the issues of planet evolution (geological, atmospheric, etc). Life is another biggie, finding it or not. Even a null detection gives us statistics on the likihood of life developping. We have one known case where we know life (as we know it, which is all we are really able to talk about right now) could have formed, and it did in fact form there: Earth. I'll leave off Mars because the question of whether it had life when it was habitable is still open. Statistics of 1 are very bad news, especially when we are that statistic of 1 (we being the observers introduce a massive bias, no?).
It will be interesting to see what this finds in the way of brown dwarfs (failed stars/really big planets).
Some models of dark matter say that much of it is in the form of "MAssive Compact Halo Objects", of which brown dwarfs would be one type. While a brown dwarf is the next best thing to undetectable at visible wavelengths, a brown dwarf might have a detectable heat signature from warming processes similar to those at work within Jupiter. A big IR telescope could help determine if there are enough brown dwarfs to account for some of the missing mass.
An IR telescope would also be good at finding stars that are masked by dense dust clouds. Starlight would heat up the clouds near the star.
And if anyone's built a Dyson sphere, that will have a pretty obvious heat signature too [unlikely, but we'd certainly see it].