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First images from Euclid are in

(dlmultimedia.esa.int)
544 points mooreds | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 20:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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lfmunoz4 ◴[22 Oct 24 00:22 UTC] No.41909953[source]▶
600x zoom didn't seem to help from the 150x zoom. Wonder if we will ever be able to see actual planet surfaces or we need some other technology to do that, i.e, we should have small satellites every 10 light years. but this map is amazing and a good step forward.

Edit: Was just thinking that image does us tells us something i.e, there no large artificial structures or billboards anywhere we can see. Maybe I watch too much sci-fi but honestly would have expected someone to build some huge structure around a star or planet, would be disappointing if no one does.

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stouset ◴[22 Oct 24 00:29 UTC] No.41909980[source]▶
There is zero way to optically resolve an exoplanet’s surface without something like a gravitational lens.
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xpl ◴[22 Oct 24 01:35 UTC] No.41910325[source]▶
Can't we build a giant optical interferometer in space by sending multiple telescopes out there?
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mlyle ◴[22 Oct 24 03:53 UTC] No.41911032[source]▶
Possibly, but the challenges to do so are immense. Using the sun as a giant gravitational lens seems much more tractable.
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cvoss ◴[22 Oct 24 04:45 UTC] No.41911269[source]▶
Really? I wouldn't think the sun is nearly massive enough to do what would be required here. Stars visible near the edge of the Sun appear in slightly different spots from their actual locations. If there was a distant planet directly behind the Sun whose light were focused back to an image on our side of the Sun, you'd have to get really far back from the Sun to resolve the image, no? And furthermore, it's exceedingly difficult to orient such an apparatus to look in the desired direction; you are beholden to the orbital mechanics of your viewing satellite as it plods along.

Whereas, multi-site telescopes spread across the Earth have already been demonstrated as a feasible technology (recall the black hole images). It is well within our ability to set up a constellation of satellites, perhaps spanning a few of the Earth-Sun Lagrange points.

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1. mlyle ◴[22 Oct 24 06:12 UTC] No.41911646[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens

> you'd have to get really far back from the Sun to resolve the image, no?

Yah, a few hundred AU.

> you are beholden to the orbital mechanics of your viewing satellite as it plods along.

Yah, any mission like this -- interferometry or gravitational lensing -- is going to be super long and hit very few targets.

> Whereas, multi-site telescopes spread across the Earth have already been demonstrated as a feasible technology

Yah, at radio frequency while pinned to a common rock. The wavelength of visible light is hundreds of nanometers and we're talking across massive distances and significant gravity gradients and even relativistic corrections. The "big" space interferometers currently being considered are in the mid-infrared (e.g. longer wavelengths) across baselines of hundreds of meters.

All of these ideas are really hard.