11–20 of 20 posts
NASA's WFIRST mission is trying to do gravitional microlensing observations, but Trump's latest budget kills it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Field_Infrared_Survey_Tel...
This is insanely cool. I had no idea this was possible. If I'm reading right the spacecraft would have to be placed at about 600-850 AU from the sun to take advantage of the solar gravity lens. For reference, Pluto's orbit is located at (roughly) 40 AU.
could we use New Horizons to do it? ...I suppose not, it's taken 10 years for it to go 40AU so for it to go to 400AU it would take 100 years...
This is insanely cool. I had no idea this was possible. If I'm reading right the spacecraft would have to be placed at about 600-850 AU from the sun to take advantage of the solar gravity lens. For reference, Pluto's orbit is located at (roughly) 40 AU.
could we use New Horizons to do it? ...I suppose not, it's taken 10 years for it to go 40AU so for it to go to 400AU it would take 100 years...
This is insanely cool. I had no idea this was possible. If I'm reading right the spacecraft would have to be placed at about 600-850 AU from the sun to take advantage of the solar gravity lens. For reference, Pluto's orbit is located at (roughly) 40 AU.
could we use New Horizons to do it? ...I suppose not, it's taken 10 years for it to go 40AU so for it to go to 400AU it would take 100 years...
Then you have a hope of making the trip in a couple decades
I don't know telescopes but I know enough about DSP to make me suspect this is gonna need all sorts of fun high performance deconvolution algorithms....
I'm wondering now if with BFR we could pre-place fuel in the slingshot path to get it there quicker and depend less on the Sun gravity slingshot.
This sounds like moonshot-level complexity. It invokes solar sails, laser communication at 550 AU, as well as "advanced propulsion, lightweight telescopes, membrane mirrors, inflatable/rigidizeable structures, and novel coronagraphic techniques." All that for a telescope you can't aim...
Moonshot x Manhattan Project with a dash of Star Trek. Basically we need the next few generations of novel materials, and controlled fusion reactions. Assuming no major setbacks for humans, we’d need more than a century before considering this kind of project. It would be a worthy project, although I wonder if some other tech might not supersede it by the time this was ready? Gravitational astronomy is just getting s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
could we use New Horizons to do it? ...I suppose not, it's taken 10 years for it to go 40AU so for it to go to 400AU it would take 100 years...
You'd probably need to pack a multi-mode propulsion system. Launch it so it can get a gravity assist from the Sun, deploy a solar sail after closest approach (or when safe) and ride the light pressure from the Sun to get as much delta-v as you can, then ditch the sail and fire up nuclear-powered electric thrusters for the rest of the trip. Dropping the solar sail part may be a good idea if its weight could be better…
Even more dV and time required to do that...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd probably need to pack a multi-mode propulsion system. Launch it so it can get a gravity assist from the Sun, deploy a solar sail after closest approach (or when safe) and ride the light pressure from the Sun to get as much delta-v as you can, then ditch the sail and fire up nuclear-powered electric thrusters for the rest of the trip. Dropping the solar sail part may be a good idea if its weight could be better…
Presumably when you get to the right distance, you'd want to circularise your orbit so you can use your new solar lens to look in many different directions. Even more dV and time required to do that...