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It seems that this could be an interesting system to be targeted by a FOCAL mission. It is the idea to use the sun as a large telescope by using its gravitation
by ant6n 10y ago
It seems that this could be an interesting system to be targeted by a FOCAL mission. It is the idea to use the sun as a large telescope by using its gravitational sense. One would have to have a telescope placed about 550 AU or so away from the sun, on the opposite side of the system you want to look at.
The magnification could be large enough to analyze features on exoplanets. My dream would be to build a telescope large enough, so that with the help of the gravitational lens of the sun we'd have a google-earth like view of the exoplanets.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-seventy-billion-mile-telescope http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-seventy-billion-m...
- kk_cz 10y agoI was having hard time imaging 550 AU, so for context ( distances from the Sun): - Jupiter: ~5.2 AU - Pluto: ~39.5 AU - Voyager 1 ~137,75 AU