About JASMINE Project
JASMINE is a satellite for measuring the distances and apparent motions of stars around the central bulge of the Milky Way with yet unprecedented precision. First we are planning the launch of a small science satellite in around FY2022. This Small-JASMINE with a 30 centimeters diameter primary mirror will focus on the survey of a restricted region limited to only a few square degrees of the nuclear bulge. Secondly we plan to launch a middle-sized satellite with an 80 centimeters diameter primary mirror in the 2030s that will survey the entire region of the bulge. By observing infrared light that can penetrate the Milky Way, these JASMINE missions will be able to obtain reliable measurements of extremely small stellar motions with the accuracy of 0.01 milliarcseconds (1 / 360,000,000 of a degree) on the sky. These will provide the precise distances and velocities of many stars up to 30,000 light years away. With such a completely new map of the Milky Way, including the information about stellar movements, we expect that many new exciting scientific results will be obtained in various fields of astronomy.
Illastration of JASMINE
Artist’s impression of JASMINE (the Small-JASMINE satellite : the small science-satellite with 30 centimeters primary mirror diameter) observing the Milky Way.
Before the launch of Small-JASMINE, we are developing a very small astrometry mission satellite, Nano-JASMINE (5 centimeters diameter primary mirror, 35 kilogram satellite). It is determined that the Nano-JASMINE satellite will be launched in the near future. Nano-JASMINE will provide a star catalogue covering the whole sky with a positional accuracy of 3 milliarcseconds. Moreover high-accuracy proper motions (~0.1 milliarcseconds / year) can be obtained by combining the Nano-JASMINE catalogue with the Hipparcos catalogue.