Most planets discovered and observed so far have remained hidden from direct view. Astronomers usually detect them indirectly, but a coming generation of telescopes could transform that difficult task by capturing light from planets themselves.

Among those planned observatories is Lazuli, a new space telescope from Schmidt Sciences. Scheduled to launch in 2029, it is set to become the first ever private space telescope and could open a fresh window onto distant planetary systems.

The design announced earlier this year gives Lazuli a primary mirror larger than the one aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. It will observe the sky in 23 colors across optical and infrared wavelengths, giving researchers multiple ways to examine celestial objects.

Lazuli will also carry a spectrograph intended to determine the chemical composition of those objects. Another major component, the ExtraSolar Coronagraph instrument, known as ESC, will be crucial to its planned investigation of planets beyond the Solar System.

ESC will block the light from distant stars so Lazuli can capture starlight reflected by planets orbiting them. That challenge is immense because planets can be a billion times dimmer than their stars, comparable to spotting a firefly while staring directly into a search beam.

The telescope will concentrate on giant planets. Logan Pearce of the University of Michigan and Ewan Douglas of the University of Arizona have compiled a new preprint identifying 27 planets that they consider “ideal” candidates for Lazuli to examine.

Their list has been submitted for peer review. The proposed targets include worlds whose properties have not previously been studied directly, as well as objects that have not been examined with the level of precision Lazuli could potentially offer.

The Beta Pictoris system is one example where direct observations have already taken place, but not at the precision contemplated for Lazuli. Even so, the researchers’ list remains a proposal and does not mean the telescope will necessarily observe those particular objects.

Lazuli is expected to have the ability to study cool giant planets resembling those found in the Solar System. Existing limitations involving telescope time and observational methods have generally pushed detailed studies toward the hottest gas giants instead.

ESC could be a game changer for efforts to examine cooler giant worlds. By suppressing overwhelming light from their host stars, the instrument should allow Lazuli to provide insights into the atmospheres of distant planets that have been difficult to investigate directly.

Current atmospheric research focuses mostly on hot Jupiters, which are gas giants orbiting very close to their stars. Those planets are substantially different from the giant planets in the Solar System, making Lazuli’s intended targets especially compelling for researchers.

The telescope will also operate as part of a broader collection of instruments being developed by Schmidt Sciences. That system includes two ground based optical arrays called Argus and LFAST, along with a radio observatory named the Deep Synoptic Array, or DSA.

The four instruments will be able to work together and independently. Astronomer Arpita Roy, director of astrophysics and space at Schmidt Sciences, previously told IFLScience, “Part of why we're calling this a system is because they will be interoperable.”

Roy described how an observation made by one instrument could quickly lead to another. “You find something with Argus, you can seamlessly follow it up with LFAST or Lazuli. There will be software and data centralized for the Schmidt observatories, so you go to one place, and you can get all of the data from the observatories and also hopefully, we think, connect to other datasets as well.”

That shared system could also connect Schmidt observatory results with information from other projects. Roy said, “So you can cross-analyze Rubin and Argus, for example.”

Several planets on the proposed target list will also be visible to the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope. Observations from those facilities could expand what researchers know about the objects, while this work could prove crucial for future surveys seeking to image an Earth sized planet directly.