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Home > Long-Range Scanner

Long-Range Scanner [1]

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]

Solar Lens
Artistic idea of a planet imaged through a solar gravitational lens
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Source URL:https://legacy.stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/long-range-scanner

Links
[1] https://legacy.stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/long-range-scanner