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posted by chromas on Monday May 25 2020, @03:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the pixila-centauri dept.

Phys.org reports on the bold plan to take pictures of an exoplanet so sharp that oceans, continents and even clouds would be discernible.

Right now, it's impossible. From our vantage point, exoplanets—planets orbiting other stars—look like fireflies next to spotlights. In the few images we've managed to take of them, the exoplanets are mere dots. Even as the next generation of space telescopes comes online, this won't change—you'd need a 90-kilometer-wide telescope to see surface features on a planet 100 light years away.

A group of researchers has an audacious plan to overcome these difficulties. It involves using solar sail spacecraft—possibly an entire fleet of them—to fly faster and farther away from Earth than any previous space probe, turn around, and use our distant Sun's gravity as a giant magnifying glass. If it works, we'll capture an image of an exoplanet so sharp that we can see features just 10 kilometers across.

Recently awarded a $2 million grant by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, and spearheaded by JPL physicist Slava Turyshev, the project,

called the Solar Gravity Lens, or SGL, sounds like something straight out of science fiction. NASA and a collection of universities, aerospace companies and other organizations are involved, as well as Planetary Society co-founder Lou Friedman, the original solar sailing guru.

According to Turyshev

The needed technologies do already exist, but the challenge is how to make use of that technology, how to accelerate their development, and then how to best put them to use. I think we are at the beginning of an exciting period in the space industry, where getting to SGL would be practical, and scientifically exciting."

I wonder if it will come with an EF mount.

Previous Coverage
25 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Selected for 2018
Sun Could be Used as a Gravitational Lens by a Spacecraft 550 AU Away

Related
"Terrascope": Earth's Atmosphere Could be Used as a Refraction Lens for a Space Telescope


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2020, @05:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2020, @05:25PM (#999290)

    "sounds like something out of science fiction"

    I really really am tired of hearing that in these kind of stories. We have been at the point for decades where we can do anything that is in science fiction stores that doesn't break the laws of physics.

    And in this case, I really don't know what it is in particular that sounds like it is something out of science fiction. We've been utilizing gravitational lensing for as long as we recognized what it was. All this does is allow you to have better control of your observations.