NASA will launch an artificial star into space

NASA plans to send an unusual toaster-sized cargo equipped with eight lasers into space.

The task of the device is to simulate stars and other celestial objects, such as supernovae, by pointing lasers directly at devices installed on Earth.

The artificial star is part of a mission called Landolt, with a total cost of $19.5 million. It is designed to obtain more accurate measurements of real stars. Researchers believe that it will even be able to help in the study of dark energy.

"Even with the use of advanced instruments, measurements of the true brightness of stars are known only with an accuracy of a few percent," said the deputy director of the NASA Exoplanet Institute. David Ciardi. According to him, Landolt will increase the accuracy of these measurements by more than tenfold.

The mission was named after astronomer Alro Landolt, who created widely used catalogs of stellar brightness since 1973 and died in 2022.