Talk:New Worlds Mission

Comments
Will the real starshade be as pixelated as the accompanying image?

Opening up Summary
Can somebody open up the summary of Possible Discoveries and see how low the lowest possible mass and how far the farthest possible orbital distance is for planets by New Worlds Imager and maybe others like collect more precise data and collect new data for the discovered planets and previous planets like it discovered years before that mission would be launched. Cosmium 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't quite understand your question. Since New Worlds Imager can only detect visible light or infrared radiation from the planets, it cannot directly measure their masses, but there has to be some minimum size for planets it can detect (which of course depends on how near the star is from us). Detections on visible light depend on the planet's orbital distance, but IR telescope can detect free-floating planets, provided they're warm enough. But in their case a star shade would be unnecessary.


 * What comes to possible discoveries, we cannot speculate (see Wikipedia is not a crystal ball).--JyriL talk 00:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course, well-justified estimations given by a reliable source could be included.--JyriL talk 00:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Starshade
The two are clearly the same idea - same person in charge. Looking at the external links and Google results for each, it looks like "starshade" is just a descriptive term and "New Worlds Imager" (or "New Worlds"?) is the proper project name, so merge into this article. Sho Uemura 18:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You have a good point. The starshade is the generic term for the specially shaped occulter that creates a shadow rather than the spot of Arago. New Worlds is the project that uses a starshade (created explicitly for this project by the same guy - as you mentioned) to search for exoplanets. I think it's important to have a "New Worlds" titled article as it's a likely future NASA mission, however having a separate "starshade" titled article seems less important to me since it's a subcomponent of the project. So it seems reasonable to merge the starshade article into the New Worlds article. Boulderinionian 05:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

A starshade is the thing that does the light suppression, the actual petal shaped structure. New Worlds Observer (by the way, not Mission) is a mission concept that uses a Starshade. They are two separate things. It's like merging the article on coronagraphs with a particular coronagraph mission. There are several missions using a Starshade in the works, so they should be kept separate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.228.195.206 (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

NIAC closed down...
...what happened to this project? --AndersFeder (talk) 20:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * NASA funded the New Worlds Observer project with $3 billion in Feb 2008.--AndersFeder (talk) 20:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Aiming the Aragoscope?
The Aragoscope is an intriguing idea, but how would it be aimed? If the shade and the telescope are thousands of miles apart, then turning the telescope just a little bit would require the shade to move great distances. Or would it just point at whatever happens to be in front of it? I don't know how useful a scope like that could be, especially since its orbital motion would blur long exposures.

Even if the shade and scope remain in precisely the same orbit, their relative positions would drift over time unless they have engines to keep them in place. The engines and fuel would greatly increase the launch weight, and thus would also increase the cost of the mission. It seems like maintaining a precise alignment with a distant telescope over time would be incredibly difficult even if they can't be aimed.

And even if it's somehow feasible both to move the shade and to ensure it would still line up correctly with the telescope, the orbital dynamics would change. One part would be closer to the sun and/or the earth, so it would move faster than the other.

Is our technology advanced enough to compensate for these problems? There can't be much room for error, since the alignment probably has to be precise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.4.239.249 (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on New Worlds Mission. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140702063801/http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2005/390.html to http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2005/390.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Demerge Aragoscope
Aragoscope redirects here, but this proposal is clearly, and specifically not an Aragoscope as the petals around the edge are specifically designed to avoid the diffraction of light into the central axis. I propose removing the redirect and making a specific page for Aragoscope. Medconn (talk) 09:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)