DARPA Powers Up New Super-Powerful Telescope

The Defense Advanced Projects Agency recently powered up a new optical light telescope that is incredibly powerful (ex. can see generate hi-res pictures of the surface of mars). The earth-based telescope is for identifying and tracking space debris, and ultra-faint extra-solar objects. I wonder when (or if) we'll get the pictures?



LINK TO NEWS STORY

DARPA PRESS RELEASE

Pretty cool stuff...I know there are some places that some people on here would like a better look at!

Great....Something else that they will hide from us. 25 years down the road they will release pictures of UFO's they found flying around in space. If we are still around by then......

Will we ever have access to images that show high resolution photos of Mars' surface? Did we ever get those high resolution photos of the moon fly-bys? Nope.

I won't be holding my breath that we will ever see what the people sitting behind the telescope lens get to see.

Reply to post by theicc

Anybody that knows anything about astronomy knows this story is fraught with error. Probably not on purpose, but those that choose to comment on this should at least know the basics of telescopes (optical in this case) so we don't descend into the very ignorance this website claims it is trying to deny.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

With this being a DARPA program, seems like they will use it to spot incoming threatening asteroids.
But even if we have a way to spot them, do we have a way to destroy or deflect them?


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by dodgygeeza
Will we ever have access to images that show high resolution photos of Mars' surface?

Yes.

Here are over 212,000 high-resolution images of the surface of Mars taken by the Mars Global Surveyor with image resolution as high as 1.5 m/pixel.

Here is access to the 70,000 (and counting) even better images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with resolutions of ~0.5 m/pixel.

Did we ever get those high resolution photos of the moon fly-bys? Nope.

Yeah, we did - and still are.

This site will show you the 235,796 (and counting) hi-res (0.5 m/pixel) images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I won't be holding my breath that we will ever see what the people sitting behind the telescope lens get to see.

The DARPA telescope (like most large professional telescopes) does not have any lenses in it, nor do the operators actually sit at the telescope.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0230436c8c82.jpg[/atsimg]

DENY IGNORANCE

Originally posted by theicc
The Defense Advanced Projects Agency recently powered up a new optical light telescope that is incredibly powerful (ex. can see generate hi-res pictures of the surface of mars).

Actually, it's not "powerful" at all, meaning it does not produce produce high magnification images. It would be utterly incapable of imaging the surface of Mars.

It's designed to quickly take pictures of a large area of the sky, capturing very dim objects.

Several ways have been discussed in higher circles. The notion of exploding them with a missile was taken off the table, the many pieces were more of a threat than the whole. The current plan, I believe, is a solar sail arrangement, put in place soon enough, it could in fact "sail" the incoming body away from it's original flight path.

I've written to the public affairs liason asking a few questions... will post with reply...

btw, the SST does have a lens...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c0be19fe48f8.png[/atsimg]

INTERESTINGLY.... This program is under the control of the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory, a division of M.I.T. devoted to National Security.... hmmm, which direction will this telescope be facing, outwards from the Earth... OR INWARDS?! lol, just a thought...

reply to post by theicc


I still don't understand why NASA kept trying to send people into space and failing a couple of times, instead of making a new powerful Hubble of some sort, and try to see where they can go. I just thought that would be a better way of exploring. Rovers do a pretty good job on Mars, I don't think we need humans yet.

EDIT: sorry if this sounds of topic. My point: keep making telescopes, send humans later.

Originally posted by Heyyo_yoyo
btw, the SST does have a lens...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c0be19fe48f8.png[/atsimg]

What's the source for the picture?

I looked at the link you posted but didn't see it there.

reply to post by MainLineThis
How can you know anything about a telescope, when you don't even know what a UV camera is. that is for Ultraviolet. It can tape things that are in the Ultraviolet spectrom that you can not see with your naked eye . Oh you for got to tell us what all you know about a telescope, waaitttinggg

I found an article about this today in the news, searched ATS and found your thread. The article I read was posted on the eCanada Now website. It raised some questions... like why is it not NASA looking for space-junk? With so many telescopes already, why waste $ 110 million on more? It begs the question.. what are they really looking for? Why is it up to the US department of defense to watch ALL satellites in orbit?

At www.nature.com... they said:

Researchers won't be able to use the telescope for their experiments, says Joseph Gambrell, chief of space situational awareness at the Air Force Space Command. "If we're going to try and get the most out of it, we really do need to maintain it as a Space Surveillance Network resource," he says.

I found that to be an interesting comment... although they MAY post data subsets on the web.

At Network World they say this telescope can see the surface of Mars.

DARPA-developed Space Surveillance Telescope is supposed to see objects in deep space like no ground-based system before it

Now, the author of this article is sarcastic about seeing "little red aliens" on Mars, but WOW in my opinion.. all that to watch satellites?

You can bet that if there are little red aliens running around on Mars or spaceships patrolling other planet in our solar system for that matter, a recently powered-up telescope built by the researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency might just be able to see them. ... The SST has a number of missions, watching for debris in low earth orbit to help existing satellites avoid collisions chief among them, it also tracks objects in deep space and offers astronomers a wide-angle lens to take astronomical surveys of stars and comets, DARPA says.

I have to ask, perhaps this would be best suited to watch Elenin? I don't know.. but another telescope? REALLY?

What are your thoughts?

reply to post by Invariance


Yes, its ability to detect small and/or faint objects makes this telescope inherently capable of deep-space research. However, the organization that fronts the money gets to decide how it's used. This time-honored rule makes sense to me.

I'm fine with DOD having its own telescopes. It keeps the academic telescopes (which are already heavily booked) dedicated to scientific research.

Besides, telescope technology has a way of making it to civilian applications fairly quickly. Witness the use of adaptive optics (originally conceived for SDI lasers) at modern observatories, and the proliferation of civilian Earth-sensing satellites whose resolution rivals the reconaissance satellites of first-world nations.

reply to post by Saint Exupery

Thanks, I really appreciate your response. This makes more sense to me now

reply to post by Saint Exupery


You're post was highly informative until the last picture, which could have been done without.

I admit I was ignorant and jumped on a sensationalist bandwagon. I stand corrected.

Anyway, I won't thank you for that, but I appreciate the websites.

reply to post by dodgygeeza


You're right: It detracts from the point and reduces the post from informative to merely snarky.
My apologies. I shouldn't let my emotions get in the way of presenting facts.

reply to post by Saint Exupery


Apology accepted my friend. I probably would have had the same reaction though, so I think I deserved it

There's nothing wrong with being proven wrong, I absolutely welcome it

Originally posted by dodgygeeza
reply to post by Saint Exupery

 

Apology accepted my friend. I probably would have had the same reaction though, so I think I deserved it

There's nothing wrong with being proven wrong, I absolutely welcome it

OFF TOPIC

Thanks, you two. This is what I love to see I wish other posters could be so adult about issues.