[HN Gopher] A solar gravitational lens will be humanity's most p...
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       A solar gravitational lens will be humanity's most powerful
       telescope (2022)
        
       Author : amichail
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2024-10-15 11:52 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | asdfman123 wrote:
       | Could we do a less extreme version of this with a planet in the
       | solar system? Or would a probe have to be too far away from it?
        
         | worldsayshi wrote:
         | Cool worlds YouTube channel has a great video about Earth sized
         | telescopes:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/jgOTZe07eHA?si=0veG99yEbLQTKs4I
        
         | yodon wrote:
         | A planet would be a weaker lens so you'd have to be even
         | farther away, and you'd have less collecting area as well.
        
       | freeqaz wrote:
       | Is there anything stopping you from putting 2+ satellites out
       | "closer" but in the path of the lensed light, capturing the light
       | simultaneously, and then resolving the image via async
       | computation later? I think this is called interferometry and I
       | know it's hard because you need _very_ precise timing, but I'm
       | curious if that would be possible or not. (Maybe you can get the
       | timing in sync with atomic clocks, or by sending a laser to both
       | from a central point that lets them keep time with some very
       | tight tolerance?)
       | 
       | Weird idea but I wonder if there are ways to take this from
       | "crazy tech" to "hard tech".
        
         | colechristensen wrote:
         | The precision you need for interferometry depends on the
         | wavelength, and being able to do this over astronomical
         | distances at visible wavelengths would indeed be a challenge. I
         | think the scale is timing more accurate than 0.1 nanoseconds
         | and distance accuracy on the order of 100 nanometers. Near
         | those orders of magnitude at least and over astronomical
         | distances that might be measured in AU.
         | 
         | Then again the precision of the gravitational wave instruments
         | measure distance on the order of the width of a proton, so who
         | knows.
         | 
         | Terrestrial infrared and optical interferometry telescopes are
         | on the bleeding edge right now.
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-16 23:00 UTC)