NASA to Launch EXCITE Mission from Antarctica to Study Exoplanets from the Edge of Space | UAP

NASA scientists say the EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared Telescope) Mission is preparing to launch from Antarctica to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets from the edge of space. Perched atop a helium-filled balloon that will lift the telescope above 99.5% of Earth’s atmosphere, EXCITE is first scheduled for a series of test flights this fall before ultimately launching from Antarctica for its designated mission.

According to a statement from the space agency, EXCITE is designed to stay above Earth’s South Pole so it can perform continuous observations of distant, Jupiter-like exoplanets. Making these types of observations using current space-based observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is costly and rare, they explain, so the EXCITE mission can offer particularly valuable data to scientists hoping to better understand and characterize the atmospheric composition and dynamics of planets beyond our solar system.

“EXCITE can give us a three-dimensional picture of a planet’s atmosphere and temperature by collecting data the whole time the world orbits its star,” said Peter Nagler, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Only a handful of these types of measurements have been done before. They require a very stable telescope in a position to track a…