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A 12-year sequence of telescope images of a star and four planets orbiting

402 points · 82 comments · mariuz

  1. ortusdux · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm excited for the leap in this tech that the Nancy Grace Roman telescope's new chronograph promises.

    <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;missions&#x2F;the-roman-coronagraph-instrument&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;missions&#x2F;the-roman-coronagraph-inst...

    The Roman Coronagraph is designed to detect planets 100 million times fainter than their stars, which is 100 to 1,000 times better than existing space-based coronagraphs. The Roman Coronagraph will be capable of directly imaging reflected starlight from a planet akin to Jupiter in size, temperature, and distance from its parent star.

    1. izend · · focus · HN ↗
      I am as well and hopefully Starship allows even larger telescopes!
      1. lukeify · · focus · HN ↗
        Starship can do it.

        As long as the telescope can fit through the Starlink Pez dispenser.

        1. walrus01 · · focus · HN ↗
          If this remains a long term design limitation it&#x27;ll be interesting to see if people design satellite hardware that consists of multiple individual rectangular slab sized things (generally same size&#x2F;shape per piece as starlink v3 test satellites which have unfolding PV&#x2F;antenna), that can latch together once dispensed, and further unfold.

          Such an architecture might not be an impossible design consideration if the goal is to have something big like the sun-shade&#x2F;cold side of the Webb telescope.

          1. topspin · · focus · HN ↗
            &gt; If this remains a long term design limitation

            It is not a long term limitation. One might design any number of stages to fly in place of Starship on top of the Super Heavy booster.

            Also, large science payloads can be launched by SLS. Back in the days of the Ares program, there were proposals to launch an 8 meter reflector (ATLAST-8m)[1] using Ares V. SLS anticipates payloads of such size as well.

            So there are at least two viable platforms on which enormous space mirrors might launch, and one of them is likely to be highly cost effective. It&#x27;s up to the science establishment to propose such missions and get them funded.

            [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ntrs.nasa.gov&#x2F;citations&#x2F;20100004890" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ntrs.nasa.gov&#x2F;citations&#x2F;20100004890

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