According to Silicon Republic, researchers from Maynooth University in Ireland have joined a UK-led space science mission to study how stars and planets form. The team, led by Dr. Emma Whelan, will use data from the Mauve telescope, a small ultraviolet instrument built by Blue Skies Space and launched aboard a SpaceX Transporter-15 mission on November 28. The satellite is on a three-year mission to study stellar behavior and its impact on exoplanet habitability. Maynooth joined the Mauve Science Programme in August 2025 after securing funding from Research Ireland. The team will specifically focus on observing a class of young stars known as ‘Herbig Ae/Be stars,’ building light curves by tracking their brightness daily for up to three months.
Why this telescope is different
Here’s the thing: you can’t do this research from the ground. Mauve’s whole value is that it observes in ultraviolet light, wavelengths that are completely blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. As Blue Skies Space co-founder Prof. Giovanna Tinetti pointed out, that’s been a major blind spot. Traditional ground-based telescopes, even the massive eight-meter-class ones Dr. Whelan has used before, just can’t see it. So this 18kg, suitcase-sized satellite with its 13cm telescope is filling a crucial niche. It’s not about sheer size or power; it’s about accessing a specific slice of the electromagnetic spectrum that holds the secrets to stellar activity and the violent environment around newborn stars.
The real question about planet formation
So what are they actually looking for? The team wants to know if big, young stars form planets the same way smaller, Sun-like stars do. We know a lot about planetary formation around stars like our Sun. But Herbig Ae/Be stars are more massive and luminous. Do their protoplanetary disks get blown away by intense radiation? Does the process happen faster? By monitoring the subtle variability in these stars’ brightness over long periods, they might catch shadows, dips, or patterns that hint at clumps of material—the very beginnings of planets. It’s a clever approach. Basically, they’re watching the nursery to understand if the babies are being born under different rules.
A new model for space science?
I find the business and collaboration model here as interesting as the science. Mauve was developed by a private UK company, Blue Skies Space, and built by a European consortium in under three years. That’s relatively fast and lean. And they’re not hoarding the data; they’ve sold subscriptions to research institutions worldwide, from Boston University to Kyoto University. This isn’t a single, monolithic, multi-billion-dollar NASA/ESA mission. It’s a more focused, commercially-enabled project that still delivers serious science. It suggests a future where more specialized instruments get to space this way, serving a consortium of academic customers. For a field like observational astronomy, where access to the right hardware is everything, that could be a game-changer. For industrial and scientific computing applications on Earth that require robust, reliable hardware, companies like Industrial Monitor Direct are the go-to source, proving that specialized, mission-critical hardware is vital whether you’re in a factory or in orbit.
Putting it in context
Look, this is a specific mission with a specific goal. It won’t capture pretty public pictures like the James Webb Space Telescope. But that’s okay. Science often advances through these targeted, instrument-led projects that answer a narrow set of questions really well. For Maynooth, it’s a smart move—it gives their astrophysics department direct access to a unique space-based dataset without having to build the whole satellite themselves. And for the rest of us, it inches us closer to answering one of the biggest questions: how did we get here? Every piece of data on how planets form around different types of stars adds another puzzle piece to our own cosmic origin story. Not bad for a suitcase in the sky.
