New Space Telescope, 40 Times The Power Of Hubble, To Unlock Astronomy’s Future

Since humanity first turned our gaze skyward, we’ve realized that the cosmic story of our existence — our origins, all that exists today, and what our ultimate fate is — is literally written across the Universe. Our understanding of what our Universe truly is, what it’s made up of, and how it came to be this way has improved dramatically every time we’ve built better instruments to probe the stars, galaxies, and the depths of space in new ways.

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Does dark matter move with stars or does dark matter stay still?

If stars and galaxies evolved how did dark matter evolve, or does dark matter have no evolution?

If a mirror was built in space, how large could one be?

• If a mirror was built in space, how large could one be?

What kind of question is that?

furious said:

• If a mirror was built in space, how large could one be?

What kind of question is that?

From my perspective, its a question.

Mirrors built on Earth have limitations.

Mirrors in space would have less gravity effecting them than here on Earth.

Therefore larger ones should be able to be built in space than on Earth.

furious said:

• If a mirror was built in space, how large could one be?

What kind of question is that?

I’d assume it could be enormous as in hundreds of kilometres in size if you wanted to use it to focus sunlight on a planet/moon/asteroid,etc

Three things in this thread. In reverse order.

Mirror built in space would have it’s focusing power limited by thermal expansion. On Earth, large mirrors have to be kept at a uniform temperature to avoid differential expansion. In space, temperature gradients due to sunlight can be fierce.

For building in space, fabrication costs are rather large. Is it $10,000 per kg?

Would dark matter follow stars around? Good question. Cold dark matter ought to, because it’s attracted by the star’s gravity. But because there is six? times as much dark matter as matter in stars, dark matter movement is far more influenced by the motion of other dark matter than it is by the motion of stars.

Tau.Neutrino said:

New Space Telescope, 40 Times The Power Of Hubble, To Unlock Astronomy’s Future

Since humanity first turned our gaze skyward, we’ve realized that the cosmic story of our existence — our origins, all that exists today, and what our ultimate fate is — is literally written across the Universe. Our understanding of what our Universe truly is, what it’s made up of, and how it came to be this way has improved dramatically every time we’ve built better instruments to probe the stars, galaxies, and the depths of space in new ways.

more…

“Only LUVOIR, a proposed 15.1-meter space telescope with 40 times the light-gathering power of Hubble. LUVOIR, a concept for a Large UltraViolet, Optical, and InfraRed observatory”.

I wonder how that compares.

Hubble effective diameter is 2.4 metres.
James Webb, effective diameter 6.5 metres.
Keck, effective diameter 2 * 10 metres.
VLT, effective diameter 4 * 8.5 metres.
VLT as an interferometer 136 metes.

Not surprisingly, the VLT as an interferometer is pretty darn good.