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Giant Telescopes Of The Future
mindpixel writes: "Mindjack just published my article about the the future of very large telescopes, such as the VLT and the OWL which I talked about in my /. interview. In addition, I talk about a future space-based telescope that would use the Sun's gravity to 'image large surface features,' of extrasolar planets, which telescpes like the VLT can just detect, 'such as oceans, continents or ice caps, or even the impact of civilization on such features.'"
The solar foci telescope idea sounds really cool, but it's got a big limitation. It can only see in 1 direction. With a 450au orbit, its orbital period is around 9500 years. That means it will only move 0.037 degrees through it's orbit every year. And assuming it won't be carrying the fuel to make huge orbital adjustments, it will only be able to view along the plane of it's orbit. We would have to have a good dense area of sky to view before launching something like that. :)
The solar foci telescope idea sounds really cool, but it's got a big limitation. It can only see in 1 direction. With a 450au orbit, its orbital period is around 9500 years. That means it will only move 0.037 degrees through it's orbit every year. And assuming it won't be carrying the fuel to make huge orbital adjustments, it will only be able to view along the plane of it's orbit. We would have to have a good dense area of sky to view before launching something like that. :)