Observing exoplanets directly is extremely difficult. If an alien species 100 light-years away from us wanted to see Earth as a single pixel, it would need a telescope with a primary mirror of 90 kilometers in diameter. But without the need for these near-impossible telescopes, there may be a way to not only see small exoplanets but even map their surfaces. The basis of this method is to transform the Sun into a giant lens.

Any object with mass bends space-time, causing light to bend around it, creating what’s known as a gravitational lens, allowing us to see what’s behind it. The Sun, the largest object in our environment, can be used like a telescope lens to get magnified images of distant objects. It is precisely for this purpose that the Solar Gravitational Lens project began.

Such a mission could provide enough detail of an exoplanet’s surface to see continents and islands (and even cities, if any), but there are many challenges to achive. For the system to work, the Sun’s lens and the rest of the telescope must be 650 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or 650 astronomical units (AU).

The Voyager 1 spacecraft, the furthest man-made object from Earth, has been traveling for 45 years and is now 157 AU from the Sun. The Solar Gravity Lens needs to be sent four times further and in a much shorter time frame. A recent article on the ArXiv preprint server states that we already have what it takes to make this task possible, or that researchers are currently working on it.

From the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. According to Slava Turyshev, the things we need include the solar sail propagation method, the onboard power supply and communication. All of these are currently available and continue to be developed.

The team aims for a spacecraft with a small telescope to traverse that distance in 25 years, requiring a much higher velocity than any spacecraft we’ve sent toward the fringes of the Solar System. To achieve this speed, the team plans to use a solar sail, get the spacecraft close enough to the Sun, and then fly it away at high speed.

This system requires the target to be determined in advance because the telescope will not be able to observe another object after it reaches its destination. Also, this vehicle needs to be very small, as solar sails have to have a very high surface area to mass ratio. The team thinks a nano-satellite that can assemble a telescope in space is the best fit for the job.

Dr. As Turyshev explains, for this system to work, the systems and vehicles must be scaled down enough to be suitable for solar sails, and an inexpensive spacecraft must be used.

This project, which may change the way humanity studies other planets and extraterrestrial life, is currently in project development stages such as fundraising, community support, team development. However, if this project is approved, it may not take long to launch. Dr. According to Turyshev, the first flight could be made as early as 2034…