Astronomers target habitable exoplanets, black holes and inclusivity as top priorities for next decade

[Admin]

The newly released astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey flags the discovery and study of habitable exoplanets and the exploration of black holes and neutron stars as two top research priorities.

Astronomers target habitable exoplanets, black holes and inclusivity as top priorities for next decade : Read more

 

[rod]

"One, called "Pathways to Habitable Worlds," is a program designed to help discover and characterize Earth-like exoplanets, with the goal of eventually capturing photos of such worlds and analyzing their atmospheric composition."

My observation. Capturing photos of habitable exoplanets looks challenging. Consider that an exoplanet the size of Jupiter, its diameter ~ 9.56E-4 au. A telescope with 1" angular resolution at 10 pc distance, sees about 10 au across.

 

[Helio]

It seems odd that the telescopes are so similar to the James Webb. Why not save money and build duplicates?

To capture say, 576 pixels, of a planet the size of Earth located 50 lyrs. away, the aperture needed would have to be 576 km, if seen in the visual spectrum.

If many JWTs could be built and used to form an interferometer with this effective aperture's diameter, holding them steady would be no small task.

Of course, more optical mirror designs would improve their performance. The shorter the wavelength, the better the resoluton.