Hubble's Successor

[renormalised (Carl)]

I hope they can bring the construction of this scope forward in time a few years or so....

http://www.stsci.edu/institute/atlast

Just think what this scope will be capable of....it will be an exciting piece of kit to work with!!!

[CraigS]

Gee ..
8m monolithic mirror, 9.2 m or 16.8m segmented, eh ?
That's serious aperture fever, right there !

"ATLAST will have an angular resolution that is 5 - 10 times better than the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a sensitivity limit that is up to 2000 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)."
..
"All forever change our view of our place in the universe. ATLAST is envisioned as a flagship mission of the 2025 - 2035 period, designed to address one of the most compelling questions of our time. Is there life elsewhere in our Galaxy? It will accomplish this by detecting "biosignatures" (such as molecular oxygen, ozone, water, and methane) in the spectra of terrestrial exoplanets."

Planet sniffing too, eh ?

Might live long enough to see it go up ! (2025 - 2035 timeframe).
Carl might just be qualified when it comes online !!



Cheers
PS: Wanna see the James Webb's 6.5m gold coated beryllium mirrors ? Its about six times larger than Hubble's. Also see Wiki: James Webb. Cheers