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Astronomers want NASA to build a giant space telescope to peer at alien Earths

63 points by zone411 5y ago

zone411 5y ago
Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s: https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/. Full report: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26141/pathways-to-discovery-in-astronomy-and-astrophysics-for-the-2020s https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26141/pathways-to-discovery-in-a...
tectonic 5y ago
This is the decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics for the 2020s. It's a big deal. The 1980s decadal survey resulted in the Chandra X-ray Observatory (20 years later). The 90s survey resulted in the Spitzer Space Telescope. The one in 2001 resulted in the James Webb Space Telescope (finally launching next month!). And, the 2010 one pushed forward WFIRST & LSST, both under active development, among other efforts. Here are some other decadal surveys: https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/decadal-surveys https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/decadal-s... And the details of this one: https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ We'll likely cover this in depth in the next issue of Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com https://orbitalindex.com).
- tectonic 5y ago
  Here's a draft of the summary that will be in next week's Orbital Index: Last Thursday, at the request of NASA, the NSF, and other science agencies, NASEM released their astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s. Following a decade of exoplanet discovery, the report’s top recommendation was for development of a space telescope significantly larger than Hubble that could directly image habitable zone exoplanet atmospheres in both IR and optical wavelengths to search for biosignatures. This telescope, to launch in the early 2040s, would be neither HabEx or LUVOIR, two proposed next-generation telescopes, but something in between. They also recommend development of a very high resolution X-ray mission and a far-infrared mission. To enable these efforts, and avoid the delays and overruns of missions like the JWST, they recommend establishing a ‘Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program’ as a new approach for planning and implementing large missions. “The program would provide early investment in technology development for multiple mission concepts to lower the risks and costs of projects before they become too complex, large, and costly.” Decadal surveys have real impact: the 1980s decadal survey resulted in the Chandra X-ray Observatory (20 years later); the 90s survey resulted in the Spitzer Space Telescope; the 2000s resulted in the James Webb Space Telescope (finally launching next month!); and, the 2010s pushed forward WFIRST & LSST, both under active development. Other recommendations from last week’s release include the development of a regulatory framework to control the impacts of satellite constellations on astronomy; changes to funding to increase research and promote diversity; continued development of ground-based gravitational wave observatories; a focus on multi-messenger astrophysics; program management changes with NSF innovation and facility funding; and, continued investment in large ground-based telescopes, such as the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), a next generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) radio telescope, and the IceCube-Generation 2 neutrino observatory.
nabla9 5y ago
ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) starts operations in 2027. One of the science goals is direct imaging of planets. ELT mirror diameter is 39.3 m (128 ft 11 in)
chrsw 5y ago
"This telescope would cost an estimated $11 billion, and could launch in the early 2040's." So that probably means $20 billion and an early 2050s launch? Still worth it in my opinion.
- sitkack 5y ago
  I know right, about 28 days of Iraq war. I'd have shaved 28 days off that war for a giant space telescope.
TomGullen 5y ago
I love the idea of using gravitational lensing of the sun from a lagrange point around Jupiter. IIRC it theoretically could image an earth like planet in the region of 1000px x 1000px so you could see continents and weather systems - perhaps even light from large cities. I watched a great "Cool Worlds" video as well that said you could do similar with atmospheric lensing of the earth from a lagrange point near the moon (although it would filter out some visible light wavelengths and be weather dependant) - but potentially a much cheaper mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOTZe07eHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOTZe07eHA This would be going full circle in terms of telescope technology, we started with lenses, moved to mirrors and now back to lenses! To me these seem like the most exciting missions ever - could define a new epoch for humanity and inspire and excite hundreds of millions of people. I would be very disappointed if this didn't happen in my life.
- dylan604 5y ago
  We went with mirrors because lenses would be astronomical in size (pun intended). So instead of having to figure out how to make an astronomical sized lens, we figured out how to use astronomical objects as lenses.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Seth Shostak of SETI has said that an alien civilization could setup a telescope in an orbit beyond the equivalent of Pluto, using their star's gravitational lensing to detect any Earth electronic activity up to a thousand light years away. Of course they would have to wait on our signals to reach that far out first.
- zardo 5y ago
  Is there some trick to make that work so close to the sun? Jupiter is 5AU out from the sun, but the solar gravitational lense focal point is 542 AU out.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > gravitational lensing of the sun from a lagrange point around Jupiter How exactly would that help? I thought the focal point of the Sun is around 500 AU away (i.e., not anywhere near Jupiter).
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Would be interesting if basically a new school of astronomy came out - new institutions etc. Identify all the astronomers talking about SpaceX ruining things. Eliminate them from funding. Add some new players. Go big on space based observation, targeting both Falcon 9 payload sizes and future Starship sizes. Someone needs to seriously look at the costs of getting a 240' pad going on earth for the thirty meter telescope for example, and what it would cost to just go to space with some of these things. What are the fundamentals here that make something like the TMT a $3B project? If you look at mirror quality on something like an EUV machine, it's equivalent in my view to the precision needed for astronomy (obviously some size differences, but the control loops, speed and precision are extremely good). ASML can do 50 machines a year and the old line astro folks take 20-30 years for one and then are yelling about cheap access to space (which one would think would be a positive net net for astronomy.)
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  > Identify all the astronomers talking about SpaceX ruining things. Eliminate them from funding. Add some new players. Ah yes, truly the scientific spirit on display here!
  - whoknowswhat11 5y ago
    Exactly - try new things, experiment. The existing funding streams are calcified, and we've gotten to a point with the monster projects that they basically turn into drag out career builders. Things like James Webb, TMT etc. At some point we have to try new things. If you look into TMT closely, the actual optics package etc - $3B is a ridiculous price. It's just totally crazy. If we pulled pricing apart we'd find out that an incredible amount is going into overheads of various sorts. ASML makes machines with 100,000+ parts, the precision needed is absolutely mind blowing. 4 747's and 40 containers to ship it. $200 - $500M tops. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/chip-machine-maker-asml-will-grow-into-a-500-billion-business.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/chip-machine-maker-asml-will... I'm serious, the precision of mirrors in these machines absolutely rivals or crushes astro precision. "The mirrors are polished to a smoothness of less than one atom’s thickness. To put that in perspective, if the mirrors were the size of Germany, the tallest ‘mountain’ would be just 1 mm high."
spaetzleesser 5y ago
Obviously they need to keep planning for the next few decades but personally I can't even think about this before I see the JWST has successfully launched and deployed. Something going wrong there would be major setback for all plans. It would be hard to justify betting another $10-20 billion after the last bet went wrong.
chernevik 5y ago
Is SETI really the top research priority? Or the scientists' opinion of what will best attract funding? Mind you, I'm in favor of all of it. This stuff is cheap for the knowledge returned. (And a better investment than the various manned programs. Does the science from ISS or another lunar visit compare with what we're talking about here?)
- DerekL 5y ago
  > Is SETI really the top research priority? The article talks about searching for life, not intelligence.

63 points by zone411 5y ago

Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s: https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/. Full report: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26141/pathways-to-discovery-in-astronomy-and-astrophysics-for-the-2020s https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26141/pathways-to-discovery-in-a...

tectonic 5y ago

This is the decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics for the 2020s. It's a big deal. The 1980s decadal survey resulted in the Chandra X-ray Observatory (20 years later). The 90s survey resulted in the Spitzer Space Telescope. The one in 2001 resulted in the James Webb Space Telescope (finally launching next month!). And, the 2010 one pushed forward WFIRST & LSST, both under active development, among other efforts. Here are some other decadal surveys: https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/decadal-surveys https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/decadal-s... And the details of this one: https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ https://www.nap.edu/resource/26141/interactive/ We'll likely cover this in depth in the next issue of Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com https://orbitalindex.com).

tectonic 5y ago
Here's a draft of the summary that will be in next week's Orbital Index: Last Thursday, at the request of NASA, the NSF, and other science agencies, NASEM released their astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s. Following a decade of exoplanet discovery, the report’s top recommendation was for development of a space telescope significantly larger than Hubble that could directly image habitable zone exoplanet atmospheres in both IR and optical wavelengths to search for biosignatures. This telescope, to launch in the early 2040s, would be neither HabEx or LUVOIR, two proposed next-generation telescopes, but something in between. They also recommend development of a very high resolution X-ray mission and a far-infrared mission. To enable these efforts, and avoid the delays and overruns of missions like the JWST, they recommend establishing a ‘Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program’ as a new approach for planning and implementing large missions. “The program would provide early investment in technology development for multiple mission concepts to lower the risks and costs of projects before they become too complex, large, and costly.” Decadal surveys have real impact: the 1980s decadal survey resulted in the Chandra X-ray Observatory (20 years later); the 90s survey resulted in the Spitzer Space Telescope; the 2000s resulted in the James Webb Space Telescope (finally launching next month!); and, the 2010s pushed forward WFIRST & LSST, both under active development. Other recommendations from last week’s release include the development of a regulatory framework to control the impacts of satellite constellations on astronomy; changes to funding to increase research and promote diversity; continued development of ground-based gravitational wave observatories; a focus on multi-messenger astrophysics; program management changes with NSF innovation and facility funding; and, continued investment in large ground-based telescopes, such as the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), a next generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) radio telescope, and the IceCube-Generation 2 neutrino observatory.

nabla9 5y ago

ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) starts operations in 2027. One of the science goals is direct imaging of planets. ELT mirror diameter is 39.3 m (128 ft 11 in)

chrsw 5y ago

"This telescope would cost an estimated $11 billion, and could launch in the early 2040's." So that probably means $20 billion and an early 2050s launch? Still worth it in my opinion.

sitkack 5y ago
I know right, about 28 days of Iraq war. I'd have shaved 28 days off that war for a giant space telescope.

TomGullen 5y ago

I love the idea of using gravitational lensing of the sun from a lagrange point around Jupiter. IIRC it theoretically could image an earth like planet in the region of 1000px x 1000px so you could see continents and weather systems - perhaps even light from large cities. I watched a great "Cool Worlds" video as well that said you could do similar with atmospheric lensing of the earth from a lagrange point near the moon (although it would filter out some visible light wavelengths and be weather dependant) - but potentially a much cheaper mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOTZe07eHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOTZe07eHA This would be going full circle in terms of telescope technology, we started with lenses, moved to mirrors and now back to lenses! To me these seem like the most exciting missions ever - could define a new epoch for humanity and inspire and excite hundreds of millions of people. I would be very disappointed if this didn't happen in my life.

dylan604 5y ago
We went with mirrors because lenses would be astronomical in size (pun intended). So instead of having to figure out how to make an astronomical sized lens, we figured out how to use astronomical objects as lenses.
goatlover 5y ago
Seth Shostak of SETI has said that an alien civilization could setup a telescope in an orbit beyond the equivalent of Pluto, using their star's gravitational lensing to detect any Earth electronic activity up to a thousand light years away. Of course they would have to wait on our signals to reach that far out first.
zardo 5y ago
Is there some trick to make that work so close to the sun? Jupiter is 5AU out from the sun, but the solar gravitational lense focal point is 542 AU out.
jhgb 5y ago
> gravitational lensing of the sun from a lagrange point around Jupiter How exactly would that help? I thought the focal point of the Sun is around 500 AU away (i.e., not anywhere near Jupiter).

whoknowswhat11 5y ago

Would be interesting if basically a new school of astronomy came out - new institutions etc. Identify all the astronomers talking about SpaceX ruining things. Eliminate them from funding. Add some new players. Go big on space based observation, targeting both Falcon 9 payload sizes and future Starship sizes. Someone needs to seriously look at the costs of getting a 240' pad going on earth for the thirty meter telescope for example, and what it would cost to just go to space with some of these things. What are the fundamentals here that make something like the TMT a $3B project? If you look at mirror quality on something like an EUV machine, it's equivalent in my view to the precision needed for astronomy (obviously some size differences, but the control loops, speed and precision are extremely good). ASML can do 50 machines a year and the old line astro folks take 20-30 years for one and then are yelling about cheap access to space (which one would think would be a positive net net for astronomy.)

beepbooptheory 5y ago
> Identify all the astronomers talking about SpaceX ruining things. Eliminate them from funding. Add some new players. Ah yes, truly the scientific spirit on display here!
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  Exactly - try new things, experiment. The existing funding streams are calcified, and we've gotten to a point with the monster projects that they basically turn into drag out career builders. Things like James Webb, TMT etc. At some point we have to try new things. If you look into TMT closely, the actual optics package etc - $3B is a ridiculous price. It's just totally crazy. If we pulled pricing apart we'd find out that an incredible amount is going into overheads of various sorts. ASML makes machines with 100,000+ parts, the precision needed is absolutely mind blowing. 4 747's and 40 containers to ship it. $200 - $500M tops. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/chip-machine-maker-asml-will-grow-into-a-500-billion-business.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/chip-machine-maker-asml-will... I'm serious, the precision of mirrors in these machines absolutely rivals or crushes astro precision. "The mirrors are polished to a smoothness of less than one atom’s thickness. To put that in perspective, if the mirrors were the size of Germany, the tallest ‘mountain’ would be just 1 mm high."

spaetzleesser 5y ago

Obviously they need to keep planning for the next few decades but personally I can't even think about this before I see the JWST has successfully launched and deployed. Something going wrong there would be major setback for all plans. It would be hard to justify betting another $10-20 billion after the last bet went wrong.

chernevik 5y ago

Is SETI really the top research priority? Or the scientists' opinion of what will best attract funding? Mind you, I'm in favor of all of it. This stuff is cheap for the knowledge returned. (And a better investment than the various manned programs. Does the science from ISS or another lunar visit compare with what we're talking about here?)

DerekL 5y ago
> Is SETI really the top research priority? The article talks about searching for life, not intelligence.