Long-Range Scanner

This artist's concept depicts a possible view of a planet in another star system as seen by a spacecraft using the Sun as a gravitational lens. The craft would travel to a minimum of 550 times the distance from Earth to the Sun -- more than three times farther than any working spacecraft. It then would use the Sun's gravity as a lens to magnify, enlarge, and focus the view of planets in a star system that aligned directly behind the Sun. Scientists and engineers are developing concepts for such a mission for possible launch in the 2030s. [Slava Turyshev/NASA/JPL]