The REAL Possibility of Mapping Alien Planets!

PBS Space Time · 778K views · 2022-10-12 · 21:15

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Overview

PBS Space Time explains the proposal to use the Sun's gravity as a giant lens, sending a train of small light-sail spacecraft to the focal point roughly 550 AU out. It covers how such a telescope could image exoplanets in surprising detail and the engineering challenges involved.

On Hacker News

It is the go-to explanation whenever a thread touches on imaging exoplanets or solar gravitational lens telescopes.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2023–2024

Topics

Cosmology & astrophysics Space exploration & spaceflight

What people said

lasc4r · 2023-06 · Strong recommendation
I feel like you need to see _this_ spacetime video: [VIDEO] If you think LISA is mad this will blow your mind.
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tzs · 2024-10 · Recommendation
Here's a PBS Space Time episode [1] from a couple years ago that describes a couple different proposals for how to do this that take quite different approaches. It starts getting into the specifics of those approaches at 7 minutes in if you don't need the introductory material. [1] [VIDEO]
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tzs · 2024-02 · Recommendation
Yes, it is possible. Briefly, you use your solar system's star as a gravitational lens. There are currently a couple proposals working their way through the system to do that here in our solar system. It doesn't require technology much beyond what we already have, nor is it much more expensive than other unmanned deep space missions. We wouldn't be able to see pyramid sized objects on alien planets that way because the Sun is only about 1.4 million km diameter, and from other comments it would take a few million km. But for aliens with a bigger star? No problem. Here's a PBS Space Time episode that talks about the proposals for building a Sun based gravity lens telescope [1]. [1] [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by PBS Space Time, played through YouTube.

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