Stella Nauta Research Paper

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It was the year 2045, and a coalition of NASA, the ESA, JAXA (Japanese space agency), and ISRO (Indian Space Agency) combined their collective resources, brain power, and monetary funds to organize one of the most ambitious missions in human history: to send an interstellar probe to the Alpha Centauri system. The name the probe was given was Stella Nauta, meaning Star Sailor. The purpose of the Stella Nauta was to look for any undiscovered properties of the stars in the system, to discover any planets, moons, or asteroids orbiting in the triple star system and to determine whether any of the planets it may or may not discover harbor life and whether it could be a potentially habitable planet for humans in the future. Before we discuss what …show more content…

Assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was one of the most complex probes ever assembled by humanity. It had many powerful and sensitive instruments on board, including high resolution cameras that could take pictures in mostly the visible spectrum to give observers from Earth a realistic view of what the probe could find. It had numerous spectrometers installed to discover more about the compositions of the stars and to find out the compositions of the other celestial bodies within the system. Furthermore, Stella Nauta was equipped with multiple telescopes that could see in all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum to uncover characteristics not available in the visible light about the bodies it encountered once it arrived in the Alpha Centauri system. Finally, in the event that the probe should encounter a planet with the potential for life, or is sustaining life, Stella Nauta was equipped with a lander probe to land on the surface of such a …show more content…

After quickly uncovering information regarding its solar cycle, Stella Nauta took measurements of the planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A that scientists had been able to confirm existed. This planet orbits its sun at about one tenth an astronomical unit and was found to be only slightly smaller than our Earth. Unfortunately, at this distance the planet, which scientists named Beta, was not able to support life. What Stella Nauta confirmed about this planet is that its surface was indeed completely molten due to the proximity to Alpha Centauri A and the intense heat that constantly blasted the surface. It also confirmed that the planet had no atmosphere. The probe discovered that Beta had a small moon, which was about the size of Iapetus here in our own solar system. Like its host planet, this moon, dubbed Delta, had a completely molten surface and no atmosphere to speak of. Stella Nauta uncovered what Beta and Delta were each made out of, however. Both had a composition primarily consisting of silicates and iron. The temperatures on both Beta and Delta were so extreme that the molten rock flowing on the surface was a combination of iron and silicate material. Essentially, these planets had a surface that was a sea of liquid

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