The shape-shifting mirror takes on a previously impossible mission
This bendable space mirror can have its shape shifted to compensate for manufacturing or alignment errors within orbital telescopes or temperature-driven distortions.
Very large space telescopes are necessary to increase image resolution and sensitivity, whether for deep space exoplanet detection or sharpened views of the terrestrial environment. But large instruments will be harder to align and more sensitive to the absence of gravity and the environmental extremes of space. Being able to actively correct a telescope mirror’s shape offers a way forward.
Piezoelectric actuators placed under this prototype 50 mm mirror serve to deform its shape. The resulting change in shape is invisible to the naked eye, around a thousandth of a millimetre or less, but it will still enable previously impossible missions to take place.
A set of ten mirrors were produced by OHB-System and the Muenster University of Applied Optics in Germany through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme—readying promising technologies for space and commercial markets—and tested against launch stresses in ESA’s Mechanical Systems Laboratory.
Source:http://www.esa.int/
An intelligent species of extraterrestrials might have telescopes far more powerful than ours.
Scientists have been trying to discover planets around other stars for generations. They finally succeeded in the 1990s, and more than 4,000 have been catalogued since then.
But could aliens have found our planet? Is Earth cataloged by even a single population of extraterrestrials? If so, what do they really know about terra firma?
You may consider this an idle question, of no greater importance than asking if gerbils enjoy oboe concertos. But the answer is of real consequence for those who scan the skies for signals from intelligent aliens. After all, if extraterrestrials are unaware of our world and its properties, what would spur them to transmit signals in our direction?
Researchers foresee linguistic issues during space travel
It lacks the drama of a shape-shifting alien creature, but another threat looms over the prospect of generations-long, interstellar space travel: Explorers arriving on Xanadu could face problems communicating with previous and subsequent arrivals, their spoken language having changed in isolation along the way.
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