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Unbelievably Large Telescopes On the Moon?
Matt_dk writes "A team of internationally renowned astronomers and opticians may have found a way to make "unbelievably large" telescopes on the Moon.
'It's so simple,' says Ermanno F. Borra, physics professor at the Optics Laboratory of Laval University in Quebec, Canada. 'Isaac Newton knew that any liquid, if put into a shallow container and set spinning, naturally assumes a parabolic shape, the same shape needed by a telescope mirror to bring starlight to a focus. This could be the key to making a giant lunar observatory.'"
He's not "offtopic", he's riffing on "unbelievable". Try to get a clue, huh?
At what point would we be putting too much weight/mass/etc on the moon?
I have no idea what the math required to answer this question would be, but it occurs to me that it may be possible to relocate enough matter from earth to the moon that it negatively impacts the moon's orbit. As I understand it, the moon's gravitational pull works against the earth's and the two are in a sort of balance that determines the distance of the moon's orbit, or something.
I imagine that 'some quantity' of stuff would make the moon rather lopsided, and could even cause it to wobble...
My question: How much?
No, the GP wasn't some twitter-wannabe. It was me, I just get irritated by clueless moderation. The AC was just to avoid an offtopic hit myself.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I was countering the Insightful modding of the comment about wind blowing dust onto the mirror. Can you believe, it's now at Score 4. Depressing.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders