Interesting project. Complete article (brief as it is) located at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/248255.asp
Preliminary plan calls for sending a telescope far beyond Pluto.
By Alan Boyle
MSNBC
March 9 � Scientists are drawing up plans for what might be called an interstellar �Super-Hubble� telescope. The plans call for a robot-controlled, nuclear-powered cruiser to tow an observatory 50 billion miles or more away from Earth. The challenges involved in turning the concept into reality are ... well, astronomical. But that doesn�t faze the idea�s backers. �We�re on the first steps of investigating how we take our first steps,� says physicist Roger Lenard.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
All this begs the big question: Why do it? The Hubble Space Telescope captured this infrared image of an "Einstein ring," a classic example of a gravitational lens. The bright spot in the middle is a massive galaxy that has bent the light from an even more distant galaxy, B1938+666, to form a ringlike pattern.
The researchers say 50 billion miles is a magic number because at that point the sun can be used as a �gravitational lens�: The sun�s gravitational influence would bend light rays to a focus, greatly amplifying the power of a telescope. Lenard said an instrument at the right lensing point could observe faint objects at the universe�s farthest reaches, and even solar systems within distant galaxies.
There are other reasons to get out of the solar system: A distant probe would have a view unobscured by the dust that surrounds the sun and planets. The farther you get from Earth, the easier it would be to create a three-dimensional map of all the stars in our galaxy.