“In 2020, a team at the University of Texas, Austin, proposed the Ultimately Large Telescope, a 100-meter liquid mirror that would stare constantly at the same patch of sky for years on end from one of the Moon’s poles.”
It's great that we can or might be able to do this. Do we really want to send our garbage, er, research instruments, to other planets or moons [1]? Can we please gain knowledge without polluting or destroying the rest of the universe?
Such a sad thought, leaving this ultimate creation pristine and untouched and unappreciated and meaningless. So much of it already beyond our thoughts for eternity as it speeds away, never to be witnessed unless sentient lift takes root there too. Still, even our most aesthetic and hideous acts will be gone in a blink of the cosmic eye. The Universe is cosmically large. But we are not, yet.
I’m really skeptical of the moon plan unless they can find a source of mercury on the moon itself. Mercury is heavy. If you’re going to build a moon telescope and pay for launching it there from Earth, you might has well pay for a good telescope that’s not limited to always looking up. In other words, the cost of the launch would make the price difference between a mercury telescope and a more conventional one negligible.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 24.8 ms ] threadIt's great that we can or might be able to do this. Do we really want to send our garbage, er, research instruments, to other planets or moons [1]? Can we please gain knowledge without polluting or destroying the rest of the universe?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_...