4 ms·
If light is hitting it, can you explain why not?
by frabjoused 2y ago
If light is hitting it, can you explain why not?
- recursive 2y agoI don't know much about it, but my guess is that 0* photons from that planet make their way into any given telescope lens in a given day.
- thrtythreeforty 2y agoThe naïve optical instrument will be diffraction limited. The resolving power of a lens, basically how "sharp" the resulting image will be, goes down as you decrease the size of the aperture relative to the focal length (that is, as the f-stop number goes up). A telescope that could zoom into an exoplanet would have an f value of a kajillion or so.
- stouset 2y agoYou’d need a 90km aperture to get a one pixel image of an Earth-sized exoplanet at 100ly.
- thrtythreeforty 2y agoHonestly that would be an incredible image by itself.