A Cosmic Eye: Liquid Observatory on the Moon
In the future, astronauts on the moon may pour liquid onto a disc-shaped mesh to make a huge mirror for a powerful telescope, according to a technical article in the June 21, 2007, issue of the journal, Nature.
"In this case we have shown how the moon is ideal (for) using liquid mirror technology to build a telescope much larger than we can affordably build in space," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, and a co-author of the technical paper. The lead author is Ermanno Borra, Laval University, Quebec, Canada. "Such telescopes, perhaps 100 meters in diameter can see back to the early phases of the universe after the Big Bang," Worden added.
The authors envision making lunar, infrared telescopes to study normal and dwarf galaxies.
The liquid would include a silver-coated surface, and would be part of an optical-infrared telescope with a 66-foot (20-meter) to 328-foot (100 meter) aperture capable of observing objects 100 to 1,000 times fainter than the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.
"The lunar, liquid-mirror project was supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. It enabled a team of scientists including myself to show how the moon - our first target in the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) - might support astronomy," Worden explained. " We hope that this or similar possibilities will excite the scientific community about the opportunities contained within the VSE," Worden observed.
According to the article, an uncoated mirror would be carried to the moon in a drum that astronauts would empty into a rotating mesh, robotically unfolded like an umbrella.
"Surface tension would prevent the liquid from falling through the small holes of the mesh," the authors said.
An international team including researcher Ermanno Borra, from Université Laval’s Center for Optics, Photonics, and Laser has developed a combination of materials that will create a liquid mirror capable of functioning in the frigidity and severity of outer space. At anywhere below -143 degrees Celsius, a telescope on the moon must be up for anything. The new material for the spinning container that will form the mirror, is an ionic liquid coated with silver, created by vaporizing it in a vacuum.
The major advantages of liquid telescope mirrors include ease of shipping, assembling and maintenance, "which are far easier than for a solid mirror," the authors note.
Borra received a grant from the Canadian Space Agency to conduct his studies.
Posted by Josh Hill and Casey Kazan.
Of course it can only work in a place that has a gravitational field how ever weak. You can't expect it to work say on the ISS.But supposing we had a liquid that is magnetic and had a weak magnet under the mesh, then it could work.
Posted by: sunderajan | June 27, 2007 at 03:38 PM