4 ms·
Mirrors can be made out of just about anything: glass, metal, ceramic, polymer, wood, you name it. The mirror itself is just a reflective coating (typically gol
by itishappy 2y ago
Mirrors can be made out of just about anything: glass, metal, ceramic, polymer, wood, you name it. The mirror itself is just a reflective coating (typically gold, silver, or aluminum), and it can be as thin as a few nanometers. The trick is shaping it and convincing it to hold that shape, which is why we currently use rigid materials like glass and metal. Something inflatable might work, but more likely we'll just stick with lightweight metals like JWST's beryllium mirrors.
However, there's already a lot of rock up there. Asteroids are numerous and big. What's the concern adding more?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- piker 2y agoGiven the reference to “the well”, it’s likely the parent was referring to mass.
- johndunne 2y agoGiven the hexagonal layout of JWST's beryllium mirrors, future telescopes could 'just' increase the size of the mirror by launching multiple payloads of these mirrors and aligning them in space to form one giant layout. It doesn't seem much of a stretch beyond the complexity and single points of failure NASA managed to hurdle with JWST. How hard can it be? ;-)