Resolved Imaging of Extra-Solar Photosynthesis Patches with a ``Laser Driven Hypertelescope Flotilla"

Details Resolved Imaging of Extra-Solar Photosynthesis Patches with a ``Laser Driven Hypertelescope Flotilla" Resolved Imaging of Extra-Solar Photosynthesis Patches with a ``Laser Driven Hypertelescope Flotilla"

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aspc..430..239l&link_type=abstract

Pathways Towards Habitable Planets, proceedings of a workshop held 14 to 18 September 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. Edited by Vincen

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Formation-flying arrays of many apertures in space, in the form of a “hypertelescope" imaging interferometer, can produce direct images of habitable planets. Designs proposed (Labeyrie et al. 2009) to NASA and ESA, however, require several actuators and sensors per spaceship to accurately control the formation flight, as is the case for other proposed interferometer flotillas. The ensuing complexity and cost has led these agencies to postpone the development of all such flotillas, in spite of their breakthrough resolution capability. The theory of hypertelescope imaging shows that more sub-apertures of smaller size produce more science for a given collecting area and array size. This suggests sub-apertures as small as 3 to 10 cm, in the form of laser-trapped mirrors. The mirrors are trapped axially in interference standing waves formed by a pair of counter-propagating laser beams, and have a deviating prismatic edge for transverse trapping. The flotilla of miniature satellites is fully passive, yet controlled with sub-wavelength accuracy, and can be deployed from a small delivery package. Following numerical simulations of the dynamic behaviour, some of us (SR & UB) began a laboratory experiment with a mirror suspended in a vacuum. Further testing aboard the International Space Station is considered in a second step before designing a full system with a kilometric size. Much larger sizes are possible in theory, toward a 100-1000 km Exo-Earth Imager capable of resolving colored patches of photosynthetic activity on habitable planets.

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