Modular space telescope could be assembled by robot

Seeing deep into space requires large telescopes. The larger the telescope, the more light it collects, and the sharper the image it provides. For example, NASA’s Kepler space observatory, with a mirror diameter of under one meter, is searching for exoplanets orbiting stars up to 3,000 light-years away. By contrast, the Hubble Space Telescope, with a 2.4-meter mirror, has studied stars more than 10 billion light-years away. Now astronomers are proposing a space observatory that would have a primary mirror with a diameter of 100 meters — 40 times larger than Hubble’s. Space telescopes, which provide some of the clearest images of the universe,