NASA's WFIRST Telescope Could Possibly Take Photos Of Other Earth-Like Planets

NASA is aiming for its next big telescope to take a photo of an alien planet that is similar to Earth. Astronomers have long wanted to get such photos, which could allow them to study worlds beyond our solar system. However, the technology to make those dreams possible has been decades away - until the organization announced that the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) could take such photos much sooner than they initially believed - probably by 2025.

The telescope was conceived in 2010, becoming a top-ranked priority for astronomers. At the heart of the telescope is a 2.4-meter mirror that has the same size and quality as the Hubble Space Telescope. What's interesting, however, is that it promises panoramic views a hundred times larger and wider than Hubble could ever manage.

Scientific American reported that NASA will be using a Wide Field Instrument Camera and WFIRST's primary objective will be to study dark matter, the force that is driving the universe to accelerate expansion.

Still, the interest of finding out whether or not we are alone in the vast universe is tugging at scientists' curiosity. The discovery of more than a thousand exoplanets (planets that revolve around other stars) have scientists expecting to find thousands more over the next ten years.

Although NASA is aiming for the telescope to get a glimpse of Earth-like planets, it seems that they actually do know where to find these planets to begin with - they may just need a clearer view. CNN reported that for the first time, three potentially habitable, Earth-like planets were seen orbiting a dwarf star only 40 light-years away in another star system.

The star, known as TRAPPIST-1 is not exactly the kind that scientists expected, but it has half the temperature and a tenth of the mass of the sun - red, barely larger than Jupiter, and too dim to be seen by the naked eye.

The planets are said to be around the same size of the earth, but given their proximity to the dwarf star, they receive about four times more radiation than humans do from our own sun - suggesting that they are still in the "habitable zone." The next generation of telescopes, hopefully, will be able to search for these planets' biomarkers, for instance, the presence of oxygen in their atmosphere.