The South African Civil Society Information Service

The Flower-shaped Starshade that Might Help Us Detect Earth-like Planets in a Decade

18 Apr 2014

The Universe is teeming with planets. Astronomers now believe that every star in the galaxy has a planet and they speculate that up to one fifth of them might be able to harbour life. Only we haven't seen any of them - yet. At Princeton’s High Contrast Imaging Laboratory, Jeremy Kasdin and his team are looking to change that with the design and engineering of an extraordinary piece of equipment: a flower petal-shaped "starshade" that allows a telescope to photograph planets from 50,000 kilometers away. It is, he says, the "coolest possible science" and it could help us find another Earth-like planet in a decade.

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