Slava G. Turyshev and his team are on their phase III NASA NIAC project to develop a solar gravitational lens telescope. At optical or near-optical wavelengths, the amplification of light is on the order of 200 billion times and with equally impressive angular resolution. If we can reach this region beginning at 550 AU from the Sun, we can perform direct imaging of exoplanets. An imaging mission is challenging but feasible, using technologies that are either already available or in active development. Under realistic conditions, megapixel imaging of Earth-like exoplanets in our galactic neighborhood requires only weeks or months of integration time, not years as previously thought.
The team has been investigating sending one meter telescopes out about twenty times further than Pluto to use the gravity of the sun bending light. The sun is 865000 miles across which is 109 times wider than the earth. The gravity lets you leverage the sun as a giant light collector.
A mission that begins its imaging campaign at 650 AU would thus benefit from the increasing SNR as it progresses to larger heliocentric distances. This would allow such a mission to gradually improve its resolution, while keeping integration times sufficiently short to study temporally varying effects, such a diurnal rotation.
There are other challenges. In this study, they modeled the solar gravitational field as a monopole field, not yet accounting for deviations in the form of the field’s quadrupole and higher moments. They also have not yet accounted for the aforementioned temporal effects, including planetary motion, rotation, and varying illumination. This work is on-going for multipolar contributions and for properly capturing the dynamics, along with work on establishing a technically feasible mission design and architecture. Results will be published elsewhere when available.
Pixel spacing is an issue because of the size of the image we are trying to recover. The image of an exoplanet the size of the Earth at 1.3 parsecs (the distance of Proxima Centauri from the Earth), when projected onto an image plane at 1200 AU from the Sun, is almost 60 kilometers wide. We are trying to create a megapixel image, and individual image pixels are not adjacent. In this case, they are 60 meters apart. This actually reduces the integration time of the data to produce the image.
Integration time is reduced when pixels are not adjacent, at a rate proportional to the inverse square of the pixel spacing. Total cumulative integration time of less than 2 months is sufficient to obtain a high quality, megapixel scale deconvolved image of that planet. Furthermore, even for a planet at 30 pc from the Earth, good quality deconvolution at intermediate resolutions is possible using integration times that are comfortably consistent with a realistic space mission.
Imaging an Earth-like planet at the distance of 30 parsec (pc) with a diffraction-limited telescope, would need an impractical 90,000 meter telescope aperture. Interferometers with a large 90,000 meter baseline would require integration times of hundreds of thousands to millions of years to reach a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio.
The final report for the phase 2 project.
Previous SGL Mission Analysis
Extreme metamaterial ceramic solar sails survive a close pass of our sun to reach speeds of 60-70AU per year which is over 0.1% of light speed. Theis propel low mass spacecraft using a dive to extreme proximity to the sun (just 2-5 solar radii). This velocity is 20 times more than Voyager 1. The technology enables reaching Jupiter in 5 months, Neptune in 10, surpassing Voyager 1 in 2.5 years and getting to the solar gravity lens location in just 8.5 years.
Metal sails that can survive a 5 solar radii pass of the sun would be able to go at 40AU per year. These systems could reach the solar gravity lens (600 AU) in about 15 years. Two-meter telescopes at the gravitational lens would be able to image megapixel resolution images of exoplanets.
Artur Davoyan works with Turyshev. Turyshev has the NIAC study on gravitational lens missions. Turyshev has proposed launching telescopes to the solar gravitational lens starting in 2028. If the materials that are can handle more heat and do not absorb as much heat can be used for solar sails, then they could reach the lens in 2037-2043.
Roccor LLC has a grant to develop 1000 to 10,000 square meter solar sails. They are developing composite trussed trac (T-Trac) boom systems. The original Trac will be flight validated on the upcoming near earth asteroid scout mission. T-TRAC has a triangular cross-section. Roccor holds an exclusive license for the Flexible Unfurlable and Refurlable Lightweight (FURL) solar sail developed and tested by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
SOURCES- Arxiv, Centauri Dreams
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
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