Article Image

IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

Feasible and Affordable Missions for Exoplanet Imaging

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com by Brian Wang

A mission to the strong interference region of the SGL (beyond 547.6 AU) carrying a meter-class space telescope with a solar coronagraph would directly image a habitable Earth-like exoplanet within our stellar neighborhood. For an exo-Earth at 30 pc (about 100 light-years), the telescope could measure the brightness of the Einstein ring formed by the exoplanet's light around the Sun. Even in the presence of the solar corona, the SNR is high enough that in 6 months of integration time one can reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm