New Mars Forums

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: New Worlds Imager - ...planets through a pinhole!

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.as … d=2498]Old technology, new application

*I searched with "pinhole," "starshade" and its name prior to posting; no results.

This is the best, briefest and most concise article on this I've yet seen.  Am doubly glad I waited to post this news item as this article includes an illustration of the technique from 1544.

"The plan calls for an opaque, lightweight, football-field-size, orbiting 'starshade' with a 30-foot (9 meter) hole at its center. A spacecraft carrying imaging equipment would trail the starshade by tens of thousands of miles. In effect, this setup would be a gigantic pinhole camera...

According to Cash, NWI would have sufficient resolution to detect exoplanets as small as the Moon.  'In its most advanced form, the New Worlds Imager would be able to capture actual pictures of planets as far away as 100 light-years, showing oceans, continents, polar caps, and cloud banks.'  NWI also could search for oxygen, methane, and water vapor in exoplanet atmospheres."  :up:

The beauty of simplicity. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: New Worlds Imager - ...planets through a pinhole!

I had to smile too when I initially stumbled upon this plan.
Beautiful idea.

But won't be trivial to implement... The idea is simple, but making it work? A good pinhole camera makes stunningly sharp pictures, but it's easy to do on Earth, more difficult in space, esp. with the dimensions they're talking about!

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: New Worlds Imager - ...planets through a pinhole!

Brilliant! I'd never heard of this concept before. (In this context, I mean.)
    And, although we have no experience of deploying such large membranes and getting them to fly in formation with photographic equipment thousands of kilometres away, the set-up is potentially much cheaper than a conventional Hubble-type telescopic camera.
    In view (excuse the pun! ) of the potential returns of detailed imaging data from up to 100 light years away, it must surely be worth pursuing.
    Great stuff!
                                   

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: New Worlds Imager - ...planets through a pinhole!

Sounds a lot like a solar eclispe box. It is used to block the harmful effect of direct viewing.