the telescope of the future could provide unprecedented details of celestial objects

Researchers have designed a new camera that could allow hypertelescopes to image multiple stars at a time. This "improved" design provides very high images resolution of objects extrasolar. The targets could be exoplanets but also pulsars, globular clusters even galaxies distant.

Antoine Labeyrie, professor emeritus at the Collège de France and the Observatory of the Côte d'Azur, but also a pioneer in this research, specifies: A hypertelescope multichamp can capture a very detailed image of a star, perhaps also showing its planets and even the details of their surface. It would observe the exoplanets in sufficient detail for spectroscopy to enter the scene to search for evidence of photosynthetic life "

In the review Optics Letters of the society Optical society's (OSA), the same Antoine Labeyrie and a college of multi-institutional researchers provide results from modelization optics confirm the fact that the multi-field design can considerably extend the narrow coverage of the field of vision of hypertelescopes developed to date.

An enlarged mirror

The great telescopes optics use mirrors concaves to focus the light observed objects and the size of these mirrors has continued to increase. But this type of mirror has a size limit precisely. Hypertelescopes are designed to overcome this limitation by the clever use of large arrays of mirrors which can be spaced over great distances. A life-size version of this type of telescope is currently in construction in the French Alps.

For this project, the researchers used computer models to obtain a hypertelescope design with a much wider field of vision. The formula could be used on Earth, but also in a crater of the moon or even on a very large scale in space. Certainly, the construction of a hypertelescope in space would require an armada of small mirrors spaced to form a very large concave mirror. The latter would then concentrate the light of the object observed towards a separate spaceship carrying the camera as well as other necessary optical components.

The multi-field design is " a rather modest addition to the optical system of a hypertelescope, but should significantly improve its capabilities ", said Antoine Labeyrie and add: " A final version deployed in space could have a diameter tens of times larger than on Earth and could be used to reveal details of extremely small objects such as the crab pulsar, a neutron star which would only measure 20 kilometers. "

A micro-optical system

Hypertelescopes use what is known as "pupil densification" to focus the collection of light to form high resolution images. This process limits the field of vision preventing the formation of images of objects diffuse or large (cluster of globular stars, galaxy). The researchers then developed a micro-optical system that can be used with the hypertelescope camera to simultaneously generate separate images of each field of interest. For star clusters, for example, this provides separate images of each of the thousands of stars … at the same time.

The proposed multi-field design can be understood as a instrument aggregated of several independent hypertelescopes, each with a differently inclined optical axis which gives it a unique imaging field. The adjacent images are then concentrated on a single sensor final. This project also requires the development of new components – adaptive optics components to correct residual optical imperfections in off-axis design, development of alignment techniques and software so that the new camera can be used with the prototype in the Alps.

All this suggests exceptional discoveries at the level of exoplanets and of major importance concerning the answer to the question of the place of humanity in this immensity which is offered to it in observation.