Overwhelmingly Large Telescope Closer to Reality

An anonymous reader submits: "The 100m OWL telescope proposed a few years ago by the European Southern Observatory group (ESO) may actually be built. Currently, the largest aperture for a telescope is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at a 'very tiny' 16.4m by comparison. This monster is predicted to have a light gathering resolution of about 40 times the Hubble Space Telescope and a sensitivity several thousand times greater. Among many other things, it should be powerful enough to detect and gather spectroscopic data of extra-solar planets in order to determine the atmospheric composition and any signatures for life, like oxygen." We mentioned the OWL in this previous article too.

Comments

Active and adaptive correction

[ObviousGuy]

A space-based telescope wouldn't have to compensate for atmosperic disturbances...

What is the space station for, if not for this kind of thing? Vanity?

Re:Active and adaptive correction

[taliver]

And to add to this comment, there are some good reasons for thinking of the moon:

1) Low gravity as opposed to no gravity
Any degassing from equipment or other debris would settle to the ground, instead of hanging around the mirror... Of course, you would alos need periodic "cleaning" of the mirror.

2) Raw materials
You could imagine that since the moon is made up of silicates and other minerals like titanium, you'd have a chance of constructing the mirrors in place. Like solar powered robots mining and the extruding glass and mirror in the vacuum to be then formed into mirror and placed. (I still need to work out the minor details...)

3) Stability
Vibrations could quickly be damped, and astronauts would have less problems as they bumped it around.

There are problems, like the issue of the sun blinding it for a decent part of the month, but I'm sure these effects could be minimized by placing it in a crater or other such terrain.