NASA will put a 'new star' in the sky by the end of the decade in 1st-of-its-kind mission

A first-of-its-kind NASA mission aims to put a new "star" in the sky by the end of the decade to help solve a wide range of the universe's biggest mysteries, scientists have announced. 

The Landolt NASA Space Mission aims to send an artificial star satellite into orbit around Earth by "early 2029," Peter Plavchan, an astronomer at George Mason University in Virginia and the Landolt mission's principal investigator, told Live Science in an email. 

The satellite will be "about the size of a proverbial breadbox" and will be equipped with eight lasers that will enable it to mimic almost any type of star or supernova from across the cosmos when viewed by ground-based telescopes, Plavchan added. This will help astronomers improve how they study the real versions of these objects.

The fake star will be placed exactly 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth's surface, according to a statement by researchers. This will put the satellite in a geosynchronous orbit around our planet, meaning its speed will match Earth's spin so it will appear to be fixed in place in the night sky. For the first year of the mission, researchers plan for this fixed point to be somewhere above the U.S., Plavcham said. 

But that doesn't mean everyone will be able to see the new star in the night sky. "It will be more than 100 times too faint to see with the human eye but will be easy to see for moderate-sized telescopes equipped with digital cameras," Plavchan said.

The new mission is named after the late Arlo Landolt, who helped to create extensive stellar brightness catalogs. NASA officially gave the mission a green light in February, Plavchan said, but it was only announced to the public on June 10. 

The project will likely have a team of around 30 people and is estimated to cost around $19.5 million, Plavcham said.