How NASA's Pandora Mission Unboxes Distant Worlds
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This episode of Small Steps, Giant Leaps explores NASA's Pandora mission, a small satellite designed to overcome the challenges of studying exoplanet atmospheres by separating signals from distant stars and their orbiting planets. Host Andres Almeida interviews Dr. Emily Gilbert, Associate Project Scientist at Caltech, who shares how Pandora uses a combination of long-duration 24-hour transit observations, optical photometry, and near-infrared spectroscopy to disentangle stellar activity—like spots and flares—from planetary atmospheric signatures. The mission, part of NASA’s Pioneers program with a $20 million cost cap, is uniquely suited for young, low-mass stars where atmospheric signals are stronger but stellar noise is higher. Pandora’s innovative design leverages off-the-shelf components and a flight spare from JWST, enabling rapid development and launch in just five years. The episode also highlights Pandora’s collaborative, agile team structure and its role in training early-career scientists. Dr. Gilbert reflects on her own 'giant leap'—being selected for a CubeSat mission as an undergraduate—which sparked her passion for space science.
Pandora uses 10 long-duration transits per target to distinguish planetary atmospheric signals from stellar noise.
The mission combines optical photometry and near-infrared spectroscopy to identify whether atmospheric features like water come from the planet or star spots.
Pandora is part of NASA’s low-cost Pioneers program, enabling rapid development and deployment with a $20M budget cap.
The mission emphasizes cross-disciplinary collaboration and early-career involvement to train the next generation of astrophysicists.
Pandora’s data will complement JWST observations, especially for overlapping targets like TOI 674B, enhancing science output through coordinated timing.
The Challenge of Exoplanet Atmospheres
Introduces the difficulty of studying exoplanet atmospheres due to interference from stellar activity, setting the stage for Pandora's mission to solve this problem.
Introducing the Pandora Mission
“We're using a technique called transmission spectroscopy. And the way this works is that as a planet passes in front of a star, the light from the star will filter through the planet's atmosphere and imprint itself in the spectrum that we get from the star.”
How Pandora Separates Star and Planet Signals
“We want to use our full data set to infer what we can about the star. So figuring out things like how many spots there are, how big they are on the surface of the star and what their temperatures are.”
Pandora’s Design, Launch, and Legacy
“We were able to get from selection to launch in just about five years.”
“It was so exciting. We still had years and years before it ended up going to space, but in that moment I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
“We want to use our full data set to infer what we can about the star. So figuring out things like how many spots there are, how big they are on the surface of the star and what their temperatures are.”
“We're using a technique called transmission spectroscopy. And the way this works is that as a planet passes in front of a star, the light from the star will filter through the planet's atmosphere and imprint itself in the spectrum that we get from the star.”
Host
Guest
Pandora
other
NASA
organization
Dr. Emily Gilbert
person
Pioneers
other
James Webb Space Telescope
other
Caltech
organization
TOI 674B
other
Brown University
organization
CubeSat Launch Initiative
other
Vandenberg Space Force Base
place
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