This is not a sunflower: these are the unfolding steps of the starshade of a space telescope. Its name is HabEx, which stands for “habitable exoplanet” observatory. But what is a starshade? Well, among all the methods astronomers use to observe, find and track exoplanets, there is the so-called “direct-image” method. It consists of literally taking a snapshot of an exoplanet, possibly an Earth-like one. Needless to say, this is a difficult task, perhaps one of the hardest goals that astronomers are trying to reach nowadays. This is not a sunflower: these are the unfolding steps of the starshade of a space telescope. Its name is HabEx, which stands for “habitable exoplanet” observatory. But what is a starshade? – –
