{"id":18819,"date":"2017-09-07T00:08:12","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T16:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/project-blue-tries-again-with-crowdfunding-campaign-for-planet-watching-telescope\/"},"modified":"2017-09-07T00:08:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T16:08:12","slug":"project-blue-tries-again-with-crowdfunding-campaign-for-planet-watching-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/project-blue-tries-again-with-crowdfunding-campaign-for-planet-watching-telescope\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Blue tries again with crowdfunding campaign for planet-watching telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_360539\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-360539\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-360539\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170906-project-blue-630x408.jpg\" alt=\"Project Blue telescope\" width=\"630\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170906-project-blue-630x408.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170906-project-blue-768x498.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170906-project-blue-1260x816.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170906-project-blue.jpg 1627w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-360539\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows a preliminary design for the Project Blue telescope. (Project Blue via Vimeo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Project Blue is launching a second try to attract crowdfunding for a space telescope designed to study planets in the Alpha Centauri system, months after the first try fizzled.<\/p>\n<p>This time around, the BoldlyGo Institute and its Project Blue partners \u2013&nbsp;including the SETI Institute, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and Mission Centaur \u2013 are aiming to raise a minimum of $175,000 through the Indiegogo crowdfunding website.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever money they raise will go toward nailing down the requirements for the Project Blue mission and engaging with potential industry partners.<\/p>\n<p>The mission\u2019s objective is to look for potentially habitable planets around the Alpha Centauri double-star system. One planet already has been discovered in Alpha Centauri\u2019s neighborhood, at Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.2 light-years away from us.<\/p>\n<p>Proxima b was detected indirectly, by measuring the planet\u2019s gravitational effect on its host star. In contrast, the Project Blue telescope would be built specifically for direct imaging of Earth-size planets.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Project Blue Search for Habitable Worlds IGG01\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/232575395?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The preliminary design takes advantage of a specialized coronagraph, a deformable mirror, low-order wavefront sensors and advanced software processing to enhance the images. Scientists might even be able to learn something about the composition of a planet and its atmosphere by close analysis of the imagery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very excited to pursue such an impactful space mission and, as a privately funded effort, to include a global community of explorers and space science advocates in&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">Project<\/span>&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">Blue<\/span>&nbsp;from the beginning,\u201d Jon Morse, CEO of BoldlyGo Institute, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>NASA isn\u2019t committing any funding to Project Blue, but the space agency recently signed a Space Act Agreement with BoldlyGo to cooperate on the project.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Project Blue\u2019s organizers tried to raise $1 million in startup funds through Kickstarter, but the campaign was called off after only $335,597 was contributed. Under the rules governing the campaign, Project Blue got zilch.<\/p>\n<p>This time, the organizers are going with a more flexible arrangement with Indiegogo that allows them to keep all of the contributed funds, even if the total falls short of the more modest $175,000 goal. More than $45,000 has been raised already.<\/p>\n<p>If the effort is successful, Project Blue estimates it will take about $50 million to build the telescope, with launch set for 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows a preliminary design for the Project Blue telescope. (Project Blue via Vimeo) Project Blue is launching a second try to attract crowdfunding for a space telescope designed to study planets in the Alpha Centauri system, months after the first try fizzled. This time around, the BoldlyGo Institute and its Project Blue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3752,1874,559,4709,5331],"class_list":["post-18819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alpha-centauri","tag-astrobiology","tag-exoplanets","tag-planets","tag-project-blue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}