From: Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Date: Tue Mar 09 1999 - 22:08:22 MST
Interesting project. Complete article (brief as it is) located at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/248255.asp
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Scientists weigh interstellar flight
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.
[snip]
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.
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