Starshade
An Ambitious New Technology Might be Needed to See Other Earths
NASA and its partners are starting to develop plans for the Habitable Worlds Observatory flagship mission that's due to launch…
Planning is Underway for NASA’s Next Big Flagship Space Telescope
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has only been operational for just over a year, but this isn’t stopping the…
Ground-Based Observatories Could use Starshades to see Planets too
All hail the occulter: an orbiting starshade for ground-based telescopes. (more…)
To Take the Best Direct Images of Exoplanets With Space Telescopes, we’re Going to Want Starshades
The Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (JATIS) has released a special edition of papers dedicated to educating the…
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Could Get A Starshade Of Its Own
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is getting closer and closer to its launch date in 2025. This Hubble-class wide-field…
There are Natural Starshades Out There, Which Would Help Astronomers Image Exoplanets
A new study by an international team of astronomers has shown that eclipsing binary stars could act as a natural…
In Order to Reveal Planets Around Another star, a Starshade Needs to Fly 40,000 km Away from a Telescope, Aligned Within Only 1 Meter
If NASA sends a Starshade into space, it will need to perform some very accurate formation flying with the space…
What is the Direct Imaging Method?
A highly effective (but very difficult) method of exoplanet detection involves capturing direct images of bodies orbiting distant stars from…
Standford Team Creates mDOT, a Mini-Starshade for Exoplanet Research
A team from Standford University's Space Rendezvous Laboratory have created a small-scale demonstrator of Starshade technology to help in the…
Rise Of The Super Telescopes: The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope
When the WFIRST observatory comes online in the mid 2020s, it will take images 100 times larger than the Hubble.