Shrinking the Telescope: The Future of Optical Technology

Telescopes could dramatically shrink in the future with a gen-after-next technology called SPIDER. A thin, scalable array of tiny lenslets piece together visual information like a jigsaw puzzle—a science called interferometry—and will eliminate all the bulk of traditional telescopes. Lighter instruments that are faster to build mean cheaper launches, multi-mission spacecraft and even benefits down here on Earth.