Originally Posted by Rachel Berkowitz, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 13 Aug 2024
At 6.5 meters in diameter, the James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror captures more light than any telescope that’s ever been launched from Earth. But not every astronomer has US $10 billion to spend on a space telescope. So to help bring the cost of space-based astronomy down, researchers at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa are working on a way to process starlight on a tiny optical chip. Ross Cheriton, a photonics researcher there, and his students built and tested a CubeSat prototype with a new kind of photonic chip. The goal is to lower the barrier to entry for astronomical science using swarms of lower-cost spacecraft.
“We hope to enable smaller space telescopes to do big science using highly compact instrument-on-chips,” Cheriton says, who is also affiliated with the Quantum and Nanotechnology Research Centre in Ottawa.
Photonics integrated circuits (PICs) use light instead of electricity to process information, and they’re in wide use slinging trillions and trillions of bits around data centers. But only recently have astronomers begun to examine how to use them to push the boundaries of what can be learned about the universe.
That sounds amazing and the cost of getting the smaller items into space should be negligible compared to manufacturing and getting the JWT up there.
Speaking of the JWT, some time ago I sent my younger sister some images I'd taken, possibly the MW I don't remember. A little later she sent me an email saying keep trying and one day I may get images as amazing as the fellow James Webb with his back yard telescope in Hawaii.
I still laugh over that email. I did explain the difference between his budget and my budget, I'm not sure she exactly understood.
That's all we need - more crap in orbit. We already have to deal with StarLink. and the multitude of satellites and junk that's in orbit. The Chinese are wanting to do their own in-space Internet, as do Amazon and several other companies.
Where does it all stop, and when do we get our pristine skies back?
Photonic Chip Cuts Cost of Hunting Exoplanets
