Posted by Ed Cheng on December 27, 1999 at 22:05:23:
In Reply to: Pluto posted by Mike on December 27, 1999 at 19:22:10:
>
> I was wondering if would for launching a space telescope in the orbit of Pluto or is too see even farther out it just too difficult with our technology right now?
For our next trick, we are planning the Next Generation Space Telescope which
will be placed in "L2". That is a place on the Sun-Earth line, about half
the Sun-Earth distance farther away from the Earth and Sun. It is one of these
"saddle points" in the gravitational potential of the Sun-Earth system where
it is almost stable for an object to be there (minor thruster
corrections are required).
see http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov
Even such a "nearby" place is a challenge today, and it is unlikely we can place
significant telescopes at the orbit of Pluto or beyond anytime in the near
future. We do study putting specialized telescopes at that distance, or in
orbits that are out of the plane of the solar system. Such telescopes would
have the benefit of observing outside the solar system dust emission (in the
far infrared). However, these are much smaller telescopes (inches in diameter)
and it is still very difficult.