Astronomers want direct images of exoplanets. They may need ‘quantum-level’ tech to get them
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Clarification of external planets in space. | Credit: NASA Space Center
A team of scientists develops a “quantitative sensor” device that can take direct photos from the Earth-like external planets-which tends to consider almost difficult.
The ability of humanity to photograph the heavens has improved by leaps and borders since the invention of the telescope in 1608. Our moonDetermine four of JupiterMoles, reveals a ribbed tape of the bow light across the sky – what we know now is represented milky waystructure.
But modern telescopes, such as James Web telescope for space (JWST), really made the field forward. For example, these days telescopes depend on very sophisticated tools called Coronaters to monitor the light coming from the things that revolve around the bright stars. “Coronagraphs currently leading, such as Vortex and Piaa Coronagraphs, are ingenious designs,” Niko Desler, PhD. A student at Arizona University and co -author of the new study, he told Space.com.
“Coronagraph is a tool used in astronomy to prevent or suppress the light coming from a very bright organism, such as the star, to detect things full of vitality surrounding it.” This allows scientists to discover things more than a billion times from the stars they revolve.
However, Deshler and his colleagues believe that they can pay more cost to pick up direct Pictures of distant worlds. “Our team is widely interested in the basic limits of sensor and measurement imposed by quantum mechanics, especially in the context of photography applications,” ITay Ozer, PhD at the University of Maryland and another of the authors participating in the study, told Space.com.
The idea is to use the principles of quantum mechanics to overcome the limits of accuracy for the current telescopes, allowing scientists to depict smaller or closer organisms than the traditional optics.
“The solution of the telescope generally describes the smallest feature that the telescope can capture honestly,” Ozer said. “This smaller scale, which is called” the limit of the zeal “is associated with the wavelength of the discovered light divided by the telescope diameter.”
This means that acquiring a higher accuracy requires building larger telescopes. However, the launch of the telescope is large enough to overcome the extent Exoplanet It introduces different types of challenges: high costs of launch and complexity of intense engineering.
“In this regard, the development of sub -photography methods for renewal is an important endeavor because it allows us to expand the external planets that can be accessed in view of the challenges and restrictions related to space monitoring,” he added. “We have inspired the exploration of the effects of these quantum theoretical limits discovered in the context of external thinking imaging, as it is done, in which many of the Earth -like external planets reside.”
Thus, the team designed a “quantum level”, which can sort the light collected by a telescope and isolated the low signal from the outer-light planets that are usually overwhelmed by the glow of their host stars.
The concept depends on the fact that photons, or light particles are transmitted in different patterns known as spatial situations. “In astronomical photography, the position of every light source in the field of seeing the telescope raises different visual spatial patterns,” Ozer explained.
Using a light device called “Spanish Syrter”, which is a series of carefully designed lying phase masks, the team is able to separate the incoming light, allowing them to isolate the outstanding photons specifically from the external planets below the sub -limit. Deshler said: “Since the light interacts with each mask and spreads in the direction of the river course through the situation, the optical field interferes with itself in a way that makes photons in every place of mystery that is physically directed to different areas that are not intertwined in space,” said Deshler.
Correspondence between the places of light sources and the enthusiastic spatial conditions corresponding to it […] “In this way, we can be able to siphon from the photons emitted from the star away from the photons emitted from the external planets.”
Stars light falling on exoplanet. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This transcends the process of digitally and putting the light of the stars after the truth – in other words, it removes the light of the stars in the visual field before the light reaches a detector. “In searches on external planets, the telescope is rotated to directly indicate a potential star, which we represent as a point of light,” explained by Dishler. “Under this alignment between the star and the telescope, all photons are emitted from the spouses to [telescope’s] The basic position-the specified spatial position that is excited when looking at the source of the axis point. “
Under this alignment, all photons emanating from the star spouses to the basic situation. By liquidating this situation, Deshler, Ozer and its colleagues managed to effectively eliminate the stars, which only reveals the light from the outer planets.
“Exoplanet light is not specified for the telescope, and it raises a different spatial position from the star,” Ozer said. “Our way maintains the largest possible number of polluted photons from virgin from external planets, which turns to carrying all available information.”
In the laboratory, the team began to show that their devices can discover the position of external planets near their host stars – closer to the traditional accuracy limits that they allow. They tested it using two points of light: one bright to represent the star and the fading a lot to simulate the outer planets. By gradually moving the dim light and recording the resulting images, they assessed the quality of the device in the localization of the external planets.
They found that when the artificial external planets were very close to the star-less than the tenth of the separation of current telescopes-most of their photo was nominated with the light of the stars. However, in a larger chapter, the Exoplanet signal has become more clear, high background noise and compatible with theoretical predictions.
In addition, by setting the star to be 1,000 times brighter than the planet and analyzing images at the utmost possibility, the team achieved results within a few theoretical limit through a wide range of sub -knowledge sites.
“This is evidence of evidence that sorting the spatial mode may provide the possibility of access to the deep subtible Exoplanets that are outside the scope of modern systems,” said Descler. “We hope this method allows astronomers to push the external planets that can be accessed with direct photography.”
The team says the technology needed to create and implement the improved Coronagraph quantity is already. They are now working to improve the device in a vibrant system that meets the performance targets.
“The main restriction is the loyalty of the book of the situation,” Ozer explained. In the laboratory, we measure the “purity” of the conditions through a scale called a crossfit, which describes the unwanted photon leakage that occurs between independent situations. The interrupted conversation is greatly stimulated through manufacturing defects and small experimental error. […] The book of the situation should be isolated every photon in the basic situation to the better than one part in a billion if it is possible to solve the external planets. “
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The team says accurate manufacturing is necessary to manufacture high -quality phase masks that can meet these “mutual talk” requirements. “We imagine the use of advanced techniques, such as photography, added manufacturing, or careful manufacturing, to create very accurate reflex surfaces,” said Desclar.
The duo hopes that one day this technology will provide supplementary data for the tasks of the leading telescope in the future, such as the world’s suitable observatory, which is a proposal successor to Hubble Space TelescopeAnd jwst and Nancy Grace Roman telescope.
“Direct photography is one of the few monitoring strategies that can measure the wavelength of the external planets,” Ozer explained. “This spectrum may in turn contain evidence about the composition of the atmosphere of the outer planets and the detection of potential biological negligence.”
Deshler added: “We imagine that the positions of the situation paid in the situation can increase the group of astronomy tools and enable a better description to enlarge the sub -chaos.” “However, the difficulty of discovering external planets calls for mutual verification with multiple observation techniques such as transit, speed measurement, and gravitational assembly. Therefore, this technology is in no way a single solution suitable for everyone.”
The study was Published On April 22 in Optica.
