A press release from the University of Colorado Boulder looks forward to a revolutionary space telescope concept selected by the agency for study last June that could provide images up to 1,000 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.
CU-Boulder Professor Webster Cash said the instrument package would consist of an orbiting space telescope and an opaque disk in front of it that could be up to a half mile across. According to Cash, diffracted light waves from a target star or other space object would bend around the edges of the disk and converge in a central point. That light would then be fed into the orbiting telescope to provide high-resolution images, he said.
"Traditionally, space telescopes have essentially been monolithic pieces of glass like the Hubble Space Telescope," said Doctoral Student Anthony Harness of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. "But the heavier the space telescope, the more expensive the cost of the launch. We have found a way to solve that problem by putting large, lightweight optics into space that offer a much higher resolution and lower cost."
"The opaque disk of the Aragoscope works in a similar way to a basic lens," said Harness, who is working with Cash on the Aragoscope project. "The light diffracted around the edge of the circular disk travels the same path length to the center and comes into focus as an image."
The new telescope concept, named the Aragoscope after French scientist Francois Arago who first detected diffracted light waves around a disk, could allow scientists to image space objects like black hole “event horizons” and plasma swaps between stars, said Cash of CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy. The novel telescope system also could point toward Earth and image objects as small as a rabbit, giving it the ability to hunt for lost campers in the mountains, he said.
But who was Francois Arago?
Dominique François Jean Arago known simply as François Arago (1786–1853), was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of the carbonari and politician.
François Arago was educated at the École Polytechnique, where at age 23 he became professor of analytic geometry. He was active in French politics, became director of the Paris Observatory, permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, and was minister of war and marine in the government formed after the 1848 revolution.
Arago's earliest physical researches were on the pressure of steam at different temperatures, and the velocity of sound, 1818 to 1822. His magnetic observations mostly took place from 1823 to 1826. He discovered rotatory magnetism, what has been called Arago's rotations, and the fact that most bodies could be magnetized; these discoveries were completed and explained by Michael Faraday.
In 1838, he proposed the experiment to compare the velocity of light in air and in water. However, by the time the experiment was ready in 1850, he had lost his sight and it remained for Fizeau and Foucalt to carry out the work.
Arago warmly supported Augustin-Jean Fresnel's optical theories, helping to confirm Fresnel's wave theory of light by observing what is now known as the spot of Arago. The two philosophers conducted together those experiments on the polarization of light which led to the inference that the vibrations of the luminiferous ether were transverse to the direction of motion, and that polarization consisted of a resolution of rectilinear propagation into components at right angles to each other. The subsequent invention of the polariscope and discovery of Rotary polarization are due to Arago. He invented the first polarization filter in 1812.
The shift to the wave explanation of light began at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1801 Thomas Young discovered the interference of light from adjacent pinholes and established the wave theory of light. Ridiculed in England, Young’s theory was championed in France by Fresnel and Arago who faced the opposition of senior scientists, such as Laplace, Fourier and Poisson, who supported the corpuscular theory.
CU-Boulder Professor Webster Cash said the instrument package would consist of an orbiting space telescope and an opaque disk in front of it that could be up to a half mile across. According to Cash, diffracted light waves from a target star or other space object would bend around the edges of the disk and converge in a central point. That light would then be fed into the orbiting telescope to provide high-resolution images, he said.
"Traditionally, space telescopes have essentially been monolithic pieces of glass like the Hubble Space Telescope," said Doctoral Student Anthony Harness of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. "But the heavier the space telescope, the more expensive the cost of the launch. We have found a way to solve that problem by putting large, lightweight optics into space that offer a much higher resolution and lower cost."
"The opaque disk of the Aragoscope works in a similar way to a basic lens," said Harness, who is working with Cash on the Aragoscope project. "The light diffracted around the edge of the circular disk travels the same path length to the center and comes into focus as an image."
The new telescope concept, named the Aragoscope after French scientist Francois Arago who first detected diffracted light waves around a disk, could allow scientists to image space objects like black hole “event horizons” and plasma swaps between stars, said Cash of CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy. The novel telescope system also could point toward Earth and image objects as small as a rabbit, giving it the ability to hunt for lost campers in the mountains, he said.
But who was Francois Arago?
Dominique François Jean Arago known simply as François Arago (1786–1853), was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of the carbonari and politician.
François Arago was educated at the École Polytechnique, where at age 23 he became professor of analytic geometry. He was active in French politics, became director of the Paris Observatory, permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, and was minister of war and marine in the government formed after the 1848 revolution.
Arago's earliest physical researches were on the pressure of steam at different temperatures, and the velocity of sound, 1818 to 1822. His magnetic observations mostly took place from 1823 to 1826. He discovered rotatory magnetism, what has been called Arago's rotations, and the fact that most bodies could be magnetized; these discoveries were completed and explained by Michael Faraday.
In 1838, he proposed the experiment to compare the velocity of light in air and in water. However, by the time the experiment was ready in 1850, he had lost his sight and it remained for Fizeau and Foucalt to carry out the work.
Arago warmly supported Augustin-Jean Fresnel's optical theories, helping to confirm Fresnel's wave theory of light by observing what is now known as the spot of Arago. The two philosophers conducted together those experiments on the polarization of light which led to the inference that the vibrations of the luminiferous ether were transverse to the direction of motion, and that polarization consisted of a resolution of rectilinear propagation into components at right angles to each other. The subsequent invention of the polariscope and discovery of Rotary polarization are due to Arago. He invented the first polarization filter in 1812.
The shift to the wave explanation of light began at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1801 Thomas Young discovered the interference of light from adjacent pinholes and established the wave theory of light. Ridiculed in England, Young’s theory was championed in France by Fresnel and Arago who faced the opposition of senior scientists, such as Laplace, Fourier and Poisson, who supported the corpuscular theory.