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The Solar Gravitational Lens will Map Exoplanets. Seriously.

Launch Pad Astronomy · 582.5K views · 2020-07-18 · 23:32

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Overview

Explains the proposed NASA JPL plan to use the Sun as a gravitational lens, sending solar sail craft to its focal region to image an exoplanet's surface. It covers the distances involved, how imaging with the Sun would work and the mission design.

On Hacker News

HN strongly recommends it as the clearest, best-illustrated explanation of the solar gravitational lens idea, and links it whenever exoplanet imaging comes up.

Recommended by 10 HN people across 9 months · HN mentions 2020–2025

Topics

Cosmology & astrophysicsSpace exploration & spaceflight
Search by tags
exoplanet imaginggravitational lensingsolar sailsnasa jplspace telescope

What people said

tombh · 2024-10 · Strong recommendation

Christian Ready made a great video on his Youtube channel, Launch Pad Astronomy, about NASA's plans for a solar gravitational lens. It's got some great graphics and visualisations, and is accessibly narrated. I was inspired and learnt a lot of new ideas. [VIDEO] (23 minutes)

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altharaz · 2024-10 · Strong recommendation

There is a very high quality video about how Solar Gravitational Lens could be used to map exoplanets, and full explanations about the images reconstruction and engineering challenges: [VIDEO]

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echelon · 2023-05 · Strong recommendation

Forget everything else, we need to build THIS : [VIDEO] A telescope array that can use our sun's gravitational lens would enable us to resolve the surfaces of extrasolar planets. We could resolve surface features as small as 10 km across at a distance of 100 light years. JPL is actively investigating this. It's incredibly promising.

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Sources

Video by Launch Pad Astronomy, played through YouTube.

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