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> So 8 m to Keck's 10 m No need to stop at one. Build hundreds, put them in orbit around the sun and turn them into an array capable of imaging exoplanets.
by mr_toad 5y ago
> So 8 m to Keck's 10 m
No need to stop at one. Build hundreds, put them in orbit around the sun and turn them into an array capable of imaging exoplanets.
- mncharity 5y ago> hundreds [...] into an array Or even just a few. :) A constraint is that optical-frequency interferometry arrays need to directly combine the input light, rather than being able to sample and simply combine data, as with radio frequencies. So optical telescopes would need to be docked. But yes, if both launch and instrument costs dramatically decline, "can I have two? four? eight? more?" becomes a fun question. At a minimum, as launch and recovery becomes inexpensive, there's less point in leaving a backup instrument warehoused on the ground.