Slashdot Mirror
NASA's Plan To Block Light From Distant Stars To Find 'Earth 2.0'
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "Over the last five years, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has found dozens of potentially habitable planets. The only problem is that we can't actually see them, because the glare from those planets' stars makes it impossible to image them directly. A new, audacious plan to completely block out the light from those stars, however, could change all of that. The plan calls for a satellite to be sent out several tens of thousands of miles from Earth. The satellite will unfold a huge, flower-shaped metal shade that will literally block the light of some far-out star to the point where a space telescope, which will directly communicate with Starshade, will be able to image whatever planets are orbiting it directly. It's called Starshade, and, given the name, it works exactly how you might expect it to. If you look directly at the sun, you're not going to be able to see anything in the sky around it. Hold up something between your eyes and the sun to block it, however, and you'll be able to see much better."
Yet one more aspect of our lives that the government wants to control!
We do what we must - because we can!
Neat design - always liked the kind of foil origami that goes into satellite construction. Designs like this are great, because they compete well against heavier designs to create a de-facto specialized GIANT EYE IN SPACE. They're also seem a little, ahem, short-sighted in the sense that they may not last long against various sources of degradation, but as proof of concept, this is great science!
It's always cool to see the science get done, for the people who are still alive!
Ryan Fenton
In terms of interstellar planetary observations we're not even at the peering through hand-ground lenses in a medieval observatory stage yet, we're still trying to squint-count the pleiades on a windblown steppe as a test of eyesight. These are part of many tiny progressive advances that will ultimately lead to things like a constellation of observation satellites in a globe around the sun using its gravitational field to magnify distant worlds to an incredible extent. Taken individually it mightn't look like much but it all adds up over time.
Better propulsion methods? Considering we've been devising all sorts of propulsion methods for the last 50 years, what exactly should we expect from "propulsion"?
Frankly, I think "propulsion" is a dead end, we need to start figuring out physics to the point where we can either teleport physical items long distances, create wormholes or warp space. Propulsion will not get us out of this solar system and propulsion will not make travel within the solar system economically viable. We need to be able to get to Mars within hours or days not months if we hope to colonize it beyond token outposts akin to what we have in Antarctica. Hell, at the rate our space technology is going, the Antarctic Ice Sheets will have melted and made Antarctica habitable before we have Orbital Shipyards, asteroid mining or Mars colonization going on.
What I mean is, instead of a shade that looks like a "flower" with "petals" can they make something that looks more like a (very) corrugated sphere?
That way if the spacecraft maneuvers to a new position relative to it, it won't have have to rotate (making it much less complex with no active mechanisms required). Also, multiple telescopes could simultaneously use it from different angles.
It could be a simple inflating balloon (perhaps with a fast setting foam) or something more complex like a "hoberman sphere"(?).
If they put it in geo- sync orbit and made it the appropriate size could multiple ground telescopes use it? With good adaptive optics of course, perhaps firing a laser at it (using it as a reference target) at a different wavelength of course for atmospheric aberration correction.
Dammit, Earth 1.0 is obsolete already. Now I know I am getting old.
Table-ized A.I.
https://xkcd.com/975/