The race is on to discover truly habitable Earth-like worlds. While we are starting to observe the atmospheres of large potentially habitable planets such as Hycean worlds with the telescopes we currently have, the most significant breakthroughs will likely come with the development of advanced specialized telescopes. These new designs will likely use a starshade to hide the glare of a star and allow us to directly observe its exoplanets. But will that be enough to study distant terrestrial planets?
Illustration of a hybrid photonic/coronagraph system. Credit: Desai, et al
While traditional optics can capture faint light, photonics works on the scale of individual photons. One of its common uses today is in fiber optic communication, so if you happen to have fiber internet, thank photonics. In astronomy, photonics has been used for things such as high-resolution spectroscopy and the detectors of some radio telescopes.
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