Sometimes we forget how overloaded our observatories are, both in space and on the ground. Why not, for example, use the James Webb Space Telescope to dig even further into TRAPPIST-1’s seven planets, or examine that most tantalizing Earth-mass planet around Proxima Centauri? Myriad targets suggest themselves for an instrument like this. The problem is that priceless assets like JWST not only have other observational goals, but more tellingly, any space telescope is overbooked by scientists with approved observing programs.
Add to this the problem of potentially misleading noise in our data. Thus the significance of Pandora, lofted into orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9 on January 11, and now successful in returning robust signals to mission controllers. One way to take the heat off overburdened instruments is to create much smaller, highly specialized spacecraft that can serve as valuable adjuncts. With Pandora we have a platform that will monitor a host star in visible light while also collecting data in the near infrared from exoplanets in orbit around it.
Image: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s Pandora small satellite, the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), and Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT) CubeSat lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. Pandora will provide an in-depth study of at least 20 known planets orbiting distant stars to determine the composition of their atmospheres — especially the presence of hazes, clouds, and water vapor. Credit: SpaceX.
We can use transmission spectography to study an exoplanet’s atmosphere, providing it transits the host star. In that case, the data taken when the planet transits the stellar disk can be compared to data when the planet is out of view, so that chemicals in the atmosphere become apparent. This method works and has been used to great effect with a number of transiting hot Jupiters. But contamination of the result caused by the star itself remains a problem as we widen our observations to ever smaller worlds.
Dániel Apai (University of Arizona) and colleagues have been digging into this problem for a number of years now. Apai is co-investigator on the Pandora mission. He refers to “the transit light source effect” one which he has been working on since 2018. Apai put it this way in an article in the Tucson Sentinel:
“We built Pandora to shatter a barrier – to understand and remove a source of noise in the data – that limits our ability to study small exoplanets in detail and search for life on them.”
The multiwavelength aspect of Pandora is crucial for its mission. The goal is to separate exoplanet signatures from stellar activity that can mimic or even suppress our readings on compounds within the planetary atmosphere. Pandora will examine a minimum of 20 already identified exoplanets and their host stars (some of these were TESS discoveries). Each target system will be observed 10 times for 24 hours at a time. Starspots and other stellar activity can then be subtracted from the near-infrared readings on clouds, hazes and other atmospheric components.
Image: The Pandora observatory shown with the solar array deployed. Pandora is designed to be launched as a ride-share attached to an ESPA Grande ring. Very little customization was carried out on the major hardware components of the mission such as the telescope and spacecraft bus. This enabled the mission to minimize non-recurring engineering costs. Credit: Barclay et al.
Pandora’s telescope is a 45-centimeter aluminum Cassegrain instrument with two detector assemblies for the visible and near-infrared channels, the latter of which was originally developed for JWST. Its observations will serve as a valuable resource against which to examine JWST data, making it possible to distinguish a signal that may be from the upper layers of a star from the signature of gases in the planet’s atmosphere. The long stare will make it possible to accumulate over 200 hours of data on each of the mission’s targets. Let me quote a paper on the mission, one written as an overview developed for the 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference:
Pandora is designed to address stellar contamination by collecting long-duration observations, with simultaneous visible and short-wave infrared wavelengths, of exoplanets and their host stars. These data will help us understand how contaminating stellar spectral signals affect our interpretation of the chemical compositions of planetary atmospheres. Over its one-year prime mission, Pandora will observe more than 200 transits from at least 20 exoplanets that range in size from Earth-size to Jupiter-size, and provide a legacy dataset of the first long-baseline visible photometry and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy catalog of exoplanets and their host stars.
A part of NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers Program, Pandora comes in at under $20 million. It also has taken advantage of the rideshare concept, being launched beside two other spacecraft. The Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is designed to study stellar flares and UV activity that can affect atmospheres and habitable conditions on target worlds. The topic is of high interest given our growing ability to analyze exoplanets around small M-dwarf stars, whose habitable zones expose them to high levels of UV. BlackCAT is an X-ray telescope designed to delve into gamma-ray bursts and other explosions of cosmic proportion from the earliest days of the cosmos.
Pandora will now go through systems checks by its primary builder, Blue Canyon Technologies, before control transitions to the University of Arizona’s Multi-Mission Operation Center in Tucson. The overview paper summarizes its place in the constellation of space observatories:
…a number of JWST observing programs aimed at detecting and characterizing atmospheres on Earthlike worlds are finding that stellar spectral contamination is plaguing their results. Typical transmission spectroscopic observations for exoplanets from large missions like JWST focus on collecting data for one or a small number of transits for a given target, with short observing durations before and after the transit event. In contrast to large flagship missions, SmallSat platform enable long-duration measurements for a given target. Pandora can thus collect an abundance of out-of-transit data that will help characterize the host star and directly address the problem of stellar contamination. The Pandora Science Team will select 20 primary science exoplanet host stars that span a range of stellar spectral types and planet sizes, and will collect a minimum of 10 transits per target, with each observation lasting about 24 hours. This results in 200 days of science observations required to meet mission requirements. With a one-year primary mission lifetime, this leaves a significant fraction of the year of science operations that can be used for spacecraft monitoring and additional science.
The paper is Barclay et al., “The Pandora SmallSat: A Low-Cost, High Impact Mission to Study Exoplanets and Their Host Stars,” prepared for the 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference (preprint).
I really like these [relatively] low-cost telescopes that can do something slightly different from the flagship ones, i.e., look at a target for a longer time to extract the needed data. In this case, 20 exoplanets of various types are to be observed for 10 transits, each transit for 1 day, totalling 200 days of data [“And still have change for other science” – (paraphrased from an old Marty Feldman comedy sketch)].
Some of these planets, I hope, are rocky planets calculated to be in the habitable zone, providing robust baseline data on their atmospheric density and composition, that may guide us in selecting an exoplanet for a biosignature determination.
I only wish that NASA would fund a small fleet of such telescopes to expand the number of exoplanets under observation. Even without scaling advantages to reduce unit costs, $1bn would buy 50 such telescopes before launch and operations costs. [I would prefer this to yet more commercial comsat swarms.] I expect that the data acquisition and analysis could be automated based on the experience of this telescope, so that any future fleet would have lower operations costs with the data accessible to scientists for further analysis to characterize exoplanets. There are other small telescope proposals dedicated to some science mission. Low costs seem worthy of funding, especially if a number can be built to allow for redundancy should costly robustness be sacrificed to reduce costs. (No amount of robust engineering can hope to handle external events such as debris or meteoroid impacts disabling a satellite, a potential problem that increases as more satellites are added to Earth’s orbits, especially at LEO.)
[This year may finally see the launch of the Moningstar Missions to Venus. Given the delayed/possible cancellations of the big Venus missions, if successful, will be the only Venus mission during the rest of this decade.] ]
Low cost and small mirror, near infra red and visible light. Just what I thought the JWST was missing. We finally might find out some of the chemicals in the nearby exoplanet atmospheres. Great idea. I hope it succeeds.
I just read that Congress has reinstated NASA’s budget, which includes the DAVINCI and VERITAS Venus missions. I hope it also means that some cuts to ongoing science missions will be ended and the missions will be continued. This is part of teh restoration of the budgets of the science agencies, including the NSF. Given its overwhelming bipartisan support, I trust it is veto-proof. IDK if this restores medical research at the HHS, especially on the development of RNA vaccines that were abruptly terminated on ideological grounds.
There is something really irrational (and anti-science) about terminating expensive missions before they are complete, and even preventing the extension of the missions to do new science when the hardware and most of the mission costs are already sunk. The same applies to ongoing science experiments and science that requires continued data acquisition, such as weather and environmental conditions.
The Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(spacecraft) goes into some detail on the instruments:
“Pandora’s visible wavelength channel measures brightness changes from about 0.38-0.75 μm, while the near-infrared channel collects spectra from about 0.87-1.63 μm”
The IR detector uses a cryocooler to get to or bellow 110K instead of LN2, so it may have a potentially longer lifetime than a year.
Thanks for the post! Always fascinating to see advances like this in the field.
The Pandora low cost telescope, equipped with multiwavelength spectroscopy, has the potential to detect laser light. This capability could enable an extremely cost effective Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) mission by analyzing emissions data for indications of laser communications in already collected data. If additional missions similar to Pandora are deployed, it would be possible to survey thousands of star systems at minimal expense. This approach may be the most rapid and cost effective method for conducting SETI and maintaining the primary objective of studying exoplanets and their host stars.
@Dean Zierman
You are describing the optical, space-based version of the Allen Telescope Array for radio. SETI piggybacks its signal analysis on the back of regular radio telescope observations.
However, I wonder if the piggyback idea for detecting monochromatic laser light signals might not be accomplished with the Rubin observatory coming online this year. It seems to me that this would be a simple addition to the all-sky observations that the telescope will be conducting over the next decade. As the data will be available to scientists, which I assume includes the spectrographic data, then the search for laser transmissions could be directly acquired from this dataset. It would be ideal for a “citizen science” program, much like the SETI@Home program, which distributes the computational effort to available computers via a screensaver running when the computer is not in use. This would be an almost costless way to search all stars in the sky for [transient] laser emissions, whether as signals or propulsion beams. It might even detect new, natural, laser-like phenomena.
Maybe such an analysis program is in place? Does anyone know?
The Argus Array consists of 1,212 telescopes, each with an 11-inch aperture, that will work together to create a near-continuous movie of the visible and near-infrared sky.
Funded by Schmidt Sciences and Alex Gerko, the Argus Array will enable real-time discoveries across the universe in unprecedented detail, with open access for everyone. There will be no military censorship, and the data will be available to the public in real-time, capturing full sky images at one-second intervals. This project would be an almost costless way to search all stars in the sky for [transient] laser emissions, whether as signals or propulsion beams.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/four-privately-funded-observatories-in-the-next-three-years/
https://argus.unc.edu/
How does the Pandora mission differ from Blue Skies’s Twinkle – first proposed at the RAS in 2015?
@John Fairweather
Looking at the Blue Skies’s website, the Twinkle telescope program appears to be a more general program typical of telescope use, capturing similar optical and IR data. Pandora is more like Kepler, dedicated to long-term observation of stars. Kepler at a patch of sky to detect transits, and Pandora at 20 select stars and their exoplanets. Either telescope might be used for the other’s mission, but IDK the technical details of such changed missions on the use of the platforms. This should be answered by astronomy experts.
Have the first 20 planets to be observed already been selected and is the list publicly available?
Also, I have a question to help us understand Pandora’s capabilities: if one of the transiting planets Pandora observed was, unbeknownst to us, a twin of Earth, complete with life just like ours, what could Pandora detect about that planet in the best case? (By best case, I mean if the host star was as cooperative as could be hoped for, etc) Thanks for any insight.
Yes, it would be an optical, space-based version of SETI piggybacking its signal analysis on the back of regular observations. It could accomplish this without a dedicated SETI mission.
I’m not aware of any SETI@Home type program. A citizen science program might help, but it is not strictly needed in this case. A similar research project has already been accomplished using existing data. “A 2821 Star Optical SETI Survey using ESO HARPS archival data https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08628”
This type of search could probably be accomplished with the Rubin observatory, but it will be in extremely high demand, and being ground-based will limit how long it can stare at a target. The advantage of a Pandora telescope is that it can stare for hours at a time, repeatedly. This makes it much more likely to detect intermittent signals. Don’t get me wrong, this should be accomplished with the Rubin observatory, only that Pandora and Pandora like projects might be able to search more thoroughly more stars much cheaper.
The signals that are detected quite possibly may be very intermittent. For example, there are currently about 10,000 satellites in orbit around Earth, each equipped with at least 4 laser transmitters, resulting in more than 40,000 laser transmitters illuminating the sky in all directions. In the coming years, the number of laser transmitters orbiting Earth is projected increase by an order of magnitude. In 10 years, this might increase by 2 orders of magnitude. This estimate does not include high-power laser transmitters used for communication with the Moon, Mars, and various space probes throughout the solar system.
These intermittent signals were thought to be very difficult to determine from noise. But this may not be the case. A recent paper, “A Firefly-inspired Model for Deciphering the Alien https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.06139” proposes that it might be possible to detect intelligence and technology without the need to actually decode and understand the signals, simply because they resemble communications.
Last year, there was a CD post on this “Firefly” approach for pulsars The Firefly and the Pulsar. It is a novel approach to look for intelligence, although the terrestrial firefly phenomenon is an example of synchrony, rather than intelligence.
I totally agree, but detecting synchrony is precisely what is needed in the data that might otherwise be perceived only as noise. There needs to be a method for filtering out what would otherwise be perceived as noise, so it can be analyzed in much more detail to determine whether the signals are intelligence in origin.
@Dean
I think I understood the paper. However, while fireflies can synchronize their flashes, this is because light travels so fast that their physical separation is irrelevant. OTOH, pulsars are separated by light-years, so that synchronization is dependent on the position of the viewer. There can be no true synchronization due to separation. For example, if one were positioned midway between 2 pulsars that appeared to flash at teh same time, an observer in each of the systems would not see any synchronization, although they could determine that the flash they observe was expected as a result of the other system flashing on receipt of their signal, i.e., 2x their distance apart. But for any 3rd party observer, it will take some calculation to determine whether any pair of pulsars is in some sort of synchrony, especially if flashes may be done as many events criss-crossing each other from each pulsar.
Still, it was an “out-of-the-box” thought experiment. Very, Sara Walker.
Let’s extend this thought experiment. Optical SETI often assumes that detecting a narrowband optical signal indicates the presence of a laser, and that lasers signify intelligence. These are two separate assumptions, but some assumptions are necessary to advance research. However, it is possible that an unknown phenomenon could produce a narrowband signal resembling a laser, without actually being one.
Let’s consider a different assumption: what type of communication system might an extraterrestrial intelligence use that could leak laser light detectable by Pandora’s instruments? Currently, Earth is surrounded by a glow of laser light, which results from data transmitted between satellites in orbit. This laser leakage is a byproduct of these communication systems.
If we assume an extraterrestrial intelligence uses a similar communication system, what could Pandora’s detectors observe? They would not detect the high-speed data modulation of the lasers, as the detectors are not designed for such rapid pulses. However, as a satellite changes its orientation to communicate with another, the narrowband signal could abruptly increase and then decrease. Over time, as each satellite moves into position, similar narrowband signals would be generated in the same locations.
Constellations of these satellites would generate narrowband signals that might appear as noise, potentially mistaken for an unknown natural phenomenon. However, when viewed collectively, the pattern would resemble a synchronized display, similar to a meadow of fireflies at night. This synchrony reflects intentional communication between satellites, distinguishing it from natural phenomena like pulsars.
This highlights the need for an algorithm capable of detecting synchrony within large amounts of pseudo-noise in collected data. Distinguishing between noise and pseudo-noise is challenging, even when the signal is known to be of intelligent origin. An algorithm that does not rely on this assumption could be valuable for identifying potentially interesting data.
For a natural explanation of the Wow! radio signal, New Explanations for the Enigmatic Wow! Signal.
Might there be possible natural explanations for narrow-band optical emissions?
Your thought experiment for synchrony between satellite laser emissions works because the satellites are close to each other in terms of c. Not so much as their separation increases, e.g., between planets, Earth-Mars, Earth-Pluto, and certainly between pulsars.
But emissions between sources within an orbit of a star (pulsar), then analysis for synchrony between emissions could work, although being unable to identify the emitting sources, could the data really be identified as multiple sources in synchrony vs a single source with random emissions?
If the emissions are narrow band, then they may be assumed to be artificial, ruling out natural phenomena, at least as far as we know. But light pulses like firefly flashes are not narrow band, but we can identify the separate sources. Multiple stellar flares creating luminosity transients might appear synchronized, because pulses may appear in multiple trains, but they would be natural phenomena…or artificially caused by some agency. If an ETI detected multiple transient flashes on Earth, the cause might more likely be the result of a series of thermonuclear impacts between nuclear powers. Definitely artificial, but not due to communication other than reactive responses.
I would argue that synchrony between multiple narrowband (laser) flashes is unnecessary, as the narrowband nature of the “flashes” already indicates a non-natural emission. If so, then the synchrony analysis needs only apply to wideband flashes (Bolzmann spectral distributions?)
Greg Matloff speculated about the possibility of stars being “alive” based on the Parenago Discontinuity. There was a debate about this that was summarized on CD Probing Parenago: A Dialogue on Stellar Discontinuity.
If stars were alive and communicating via luminosty transients, then this might be worth investigating, with all the caveats about the distances impacting the observations.
IIRC, there was an idea that supernova events could “echo” throughout a galaxy, changing the luminosity of stars as the emissions reached other stars. If a set of a series of events, this might look like transient synchrony until the effects fade.
Lastly, we can see firefly synchronized flashes for some time, so the synchronization becomes visible to our senses. Stellar luminosity changes are much slower and would need long periods to determine that enough signals were detected to suggest that there was synchrony, again, with all the caveats above how to determine this for interstellar distances, or natural phenomena for a single star.
This is cool. Skymapper – distributed telescope control. I also like that the system can quickly check out observed UAP/UFO with different telescopes. This should improve identification, and multiple observations should be able to triangulate the object location, so celestial objects like Venus will be identified rather than believed to be alien craft.
Don’t forget about those balloon FO’s, the small, white spherical UAP’s which were photographed by Google satellite maps while looking at the Earth. Pandora is in a Sun-synchronous, geocentric low Earth orbit at 370 miles “with the sun always positioned behind the satellite, minimizing light variations and avoiding reflected light from Earth.” Google AI Its not at a Lagrange point which is cost saving.
I didn’t know about those image captures. Do you have a good link?
While there are valuable benefits of having consistent illumination from one direction (directly above), you can lose the value of shadows. We know about the lunar topography because oblique lighting creates shadows that can be used to determine the shape and heights of crater walls and mounts. The same applies to recognizing objects on Earth, e.g., rockets and missiles in a vertical launch configuration. Video capture of a launch would indicate acceleration and hence performance. All this would be lost without shadows.
No I don’t have link because this one was back in the year 2009. It was an article with a satellite photo from space of a city rooftops of buildings from high above them from high above a city with an out of focus sphere since the focus was on the rooftops and the photo was enlarged and high resolution. It is not longer on the net and I am not sure, but I think it was google maps. There certainly is much better UFO photos nowadays, but in theory anything could show up in photos from a satellite which of course makes them inconclusive since they are far away.
Thanks Paul
What an interesting mission and spacecraft
Cheers Edwin