{"id":162961,"date":"2023-04-28T13:42:29","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/what-is-the-fluidic-telescope"},"modified":"2023-04-28T13:42:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:42:29","slug":"what-is-the-fluidic-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/what-is-the-fluidic-telescope","title":{"rendered":"What is the Fluidic Telescope?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/what-is-the-fluidic-telescope2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE) project team, jointly led by NASA and Technion\u2013Israel Institute of Technology, envisions a way to make huge circular self-healing mirrors in-orbit to further the field of astronomy. Larger telescopes collect more light, and they allow astronomers to peer farther into space and see distant objects in greater detail.<\/p>\n<p>These next-generation large space observatories would study the highest priority astrophysics targets, including first generation stars\u2014the first to shine and flame out after the Big Bang\u2014early galaxies, and Earth-like exoplanets. These observatories could help address one of humanity\u2019s most important science questions: \u201cAre we alone in the universe?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like a carry-on suitcase, payloads launching to space need to stay within allowable size and weight limits to fly. Already pushing size limits, the state-of-the-art 21 foot (6.5 meter) aperture James Webb Space Telescope needed to be folded up origami-style\u2014including the mirror itself\u2014to fit inside the rocket for its ride to space. The aperture of an optical space observatory refers to the size of the telescope\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/primary+mirror\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">primary mirror<\/a>, the surface that collects and focuses incoming light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE) project team, jointly led by NASA and Technion\u2013Israel Institute of Technology, envisions a way to make huge circular self-healing mirrors in-orbit to further the field of astronomy. Larger telescopes collect more light, and they allow astronomers to peer farther into space and see distant objects in greater detail. These next-generation large [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}