Sci/Tech Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Would Let Us See Exoplanets With Incredible Resolution

[The Helper]

Have you ever seen wispy arcs and rings in astronomical images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories? These unusual features are caused by a quirk of nature called gravitational lensing, which occurs when light from a distant object is distorted by a closer massive object along the same line of sight. This distortion effectively creates a giant lens which magnifies the background light source, allowing astronomers to observe objects embedded within those lens-created arcs and rings that are otherwise be too far and too dim to see.

A group of researchers are working on plans to build a spacecraft that could apply this quirk by using our Sun as a gravitational lens. Their goal is to see distant exoplanets orbiting other stars, and to image an Earth-like exoplanet, seeing it in exquisite detail, at a resolution even better than the well-known Apollo 8 Earthrise photo.

Slava Turyshev, a physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has spearheaded research into this proposed concept, called the Solar Gravity Lens (SGL). The idea would be to send a spacecraft to the exact location where it could use the focal region of our own Sun to bend the light from an exoplanet, magnifying it into a gigantic image.

“Using the solar gravitational lens is similar to using a conventional lens with a diameter equal to that of the Sun, which is 1.4 million km,” Turyshev told me. “The physics is there, now it’s just figuring out the engineering.”

Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Would Let Us See Exoplanets With Incredible Resolution

Have you ever seen wispy arcs and rings in astronomical images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories? These unusual features are caused by a quirk of nature called gravitational lensing, which occurs when light from a distant object is distorted by a closer massive object...

www.universetoday.com