On January 11, 2026, I watched with anticipation as SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It carried a groundbreaking new exoplanet telescope called Pandora into orbit. Exoplanets are distant worlds that orbit stars other than our Sun. Studying them is tricky because they appear faint next to their much brighter host stars.
The Pandora telescope is designed to work alongside NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in revealing the mysteries of these remote planets. It will help scientists understand what exoplanets are made of and perhaps even search for signs of life.
Astronomers have a clever way to study these far-off planets. They watch how the planets pass in front of their stars, a method known as the transit method. This approach is like holding a glass of red wine up to a light—when the light filters through, it reveals details about the wine. Similarly, by analyzing the starlight that passes through a planet’s atmosphere, scientists can detect components like water vapor and even clues about possible life.
However, challenges have arisen. Research indicates that features on stars, called starspots, can interfere with these measurements. For example, in 2002, advancements allowed astronomers to enhance transit observations. Yet by 2007, scientists recognized that starspots could confuse results, leading them to think they found water in exoplanet atmospheres when they were actually seeing stellar gasses.
In 2018 and 2019, a team, including myself, published findings highlighting the impact of starspots on transit measurements, dubbing it “the transit light source effect.” We argued that this phenomenon could hinder the understanding of exoplanets, making it seem like we were judging the color of a wine in flickering candlelight.
Most stars do have spots and these can change over time, complicating measurements further. The confusion they create can lead to misunderstandings about the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. In our research, published prior to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, we cautioned that without addressing this starspot issue, the Webb wouldn’t maximize its potential to uncover exoplanet secrets.
Now, with Pandora in orbit, we hope to tackle these challenges. The Pandora team aimed to build this telescope faster and more cost-effectively than traditional NASA missions. Our goal is to study how stars change over time and how these changes influence the planets around them.
While Pandora may be smaller than the Webb, it’s built for a specific purpose: to watch stars continuously. By observing stars for 24 hours at a time, Pandora can notice small shifts in brightness and color. It will return to the same stars multiple times over the course of a year, gathering information on how variations in the stars may affect what we see in their orbiting planets.
Our hope is that by combining data from Pandora and the Webb, we can gain new insights into the atmospheres of exoplanets. Now orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, Pandora is undergoing extensive testing by Blue Canyon Technologies. Control will soon shift to the University of Arizona’s Multi-Mission Operation Center, where the real exploration will begin.
As we collect data, we aim to unlock the secrets of distant worlds and bring valuable insights into the ongoing quest to understand our universe. This innovative approach could change how we see the cosmos and how we understand the possibilities of life beyond our planet.
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