Nautilus - True Next Gen Space Telescope

Classical space telescopes have their limit. You can't simply build bigger mirrors all the time. Instead, you can build more mirrors and combine them into a telescope array. That's the concept behind the Nautilus Array which we discuss with Prof. Daniel Apai from The University of Arizona.
👉 The Nautilus Array
nautilus-array.space/
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00:00 Intro
01:45 Future Space Telescopes and their Limits
09:11 Nautilus Telescope approach
15:21 Flat Lenses
23:33 Quality VS Quantity
29:52 Capabilities of the Nautilus Telescope
37:00 Earth-size planets around Sun-like stars
39:41 Current state
48:32 When do we see one fly
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[@ArekBlomka]

Excellent conversation. Personally I would like to here more of some technical details of this fascinating concept: Considering these are refractive lenses, what are the wavelengths those telescopes will operate? What will be distances between each individual telescope? What are aligning / control methods and thus fuel capacity or projected lifespan for each telescope? And Thank You for all this science work and pushing our knowledge!

[@YonatanSolberg]

Uuiiiii

[@Monsterlce44]

100% the best Telescope idea I've ever seen. Mostly since they are going about it from a scalable manufacturing perspective. Also the ability to find and gain revenue in multiple ways makes this super exciting. If a was a billionaire I would invest in this heavily and make it a reality a soon as possible. This could easily be a profitable private company. Imagine renting out Telescope time. With scalability you can donate time to science, and rent time to pay for more Telescopes. Amazing!!!!

[@x32i77]

The best idea is mine , building a telescope as large as the solar system by deploying small telescopes all over the moons in the solar system and stich them tougher via Software to become one huge telescope 😊

[@shekhinah5985]

If we still want to have a habitable planet in 150 years we need to get rid of billionaires and not expand capitalism into space.

[@user-bs1lr8nx1h]

they can do better on the Moon

[@kstaxman2]

​@@user-bs1lr8nx1hthat is simply not true. Moon based has some great features but it has some limitations that are overcome with a space based system.

[@uku4171]

To me the most important telescope idea is a solar gravitational lens telescope. That would be crazy.

[@Starchface]

This idea of using Fresnel lenses is brilliant. In fact everything Dr. Apia said is brilliant. I hope it all comes together.

[@TheNativeTwo]

What i have been saying for years… there is a missed opportunity right now to have a space telescope constellation. The solution is obvious: put telescopes on SpaceX satellites. The most obvious frequencies for a telescope on the backside of SpaceX are the radio frequencies. So when you think of it that way, each spacex satellite is a radio transmitter/ receiver facing earth, and a sensitive receiver facing out into space. But sky is the limit with these things. Throw all kinds of frequencies of light on these telescopes. Here is the reason it is such a great opportunity: spacex would probably be willing to offset the cost of their satellites. So lets say astronomers pay for half the cost of the satellite and launch. That’s a win for both astronomers and spacex.

[@tyharris9994]

Great interview . You asked all the right questions and the gentleman answered them clearly and succinctly. Better than 99% of the clickbait AI generated robo-speech crap in this KZbin space. Subscribed.

[@blogsfred3187]

One of the clearest speakers I’ve seen, clear, not talked down our . Brilliant

[@MichielHollanders]

Fraser your interviews on the topic of novel telescope designs are to me the most exciting episodes, fantastic, thanks and keep at it!

[@bobbyshaftoe45]

Well said! These scope interviews are high-octane imagination fuel

[@cbody70]

This is an intensely interesting topic and I look forward to seeing follow-up reports on. This lens technology is a potential game changer. Thanks for posting.

[@jamesstader6650]

Fraser, you didn't satifactoraly answer my question, 'how are they orientated... Combining the gathered light isn't the problem. What gets all the lenses aligned on one single target, what keeps them from drifting? Do they each have a propulsion system built in, for instance small ion thrusters. How do they know that they are aligned properly?

[@mortalclown3812]

​@@jamesstader6650 Why ask this particular commentator as if he's FC.

[@JonathanMercure]

Dr. Daniel Apai is very interesting to listen to. I would like to hear more.

[@johndoepker7126]

I was doin some laundry while listening to this....I kept imagining Armhold Musclehogger was speaking..

[@briancrainfan]

​@@johndoepker7126I thought I was the only one.

[@kstaxman2]

The future of telescopes needs developments like this. This is revolutionary work that is much further along than I had realized. An amazing project that is close to its first uses. Thanks so much for sharing this.

[@freilichr]

Thank you for covering this amazing advance in space telescopes! With the advent of inexpensive, solid state lasers, coupled with small reflecting mirrors, maintaining an exact distance between telescope modules isn't necessary and instead position in three dimensions can be dynamically calculated with nanometer precision. Station-keeping is no longer an issue. This virtual interferometry method also allows for infinite expansion and an order of magnitude increase of image sharpness.

[@jasonclow6962]

That's exciting! I can't wait to see what a constellation of them could do!

[@JenniferA886]

I can’t wait to see this project fly 👍👍👍

[@brookestephen]

You could build one on earth, using drones to carry and position and aim small mirrors, then focus the mirrors on a collector, then work on the programming to do all this and analyze the resulting image! I would LUV to get into that.

[@icosthop9998]

Drones put in space by rockets .

[@ATLTraveler]

Honestly the JWST was such a nightmare when it came to it's develooment costs and time frame, i honestly dont see another large budget telescope making it past congress for at least another 50 years. I mean the project was sopposed to cost like $800M and ended up close to $10B and was about 5 years late. It was actually nearly cancelled. I do like the idea of a modular design that can grow via additional pieces. That would also be easier to pass through congress as it's obviously much easier to pork barrell small modular items for a project in the nasa budget vs. another huge telescope project.

[@juliusfucik4011]

They spend more on the Ukraine war in a month. If we remove the war mongers and disown the corrupt politicians, we could have a handful of telescope arrays.

[@bardigan1]

Great show, Frasier, and many thanks, Dr. Apai.

[@Aj-kl7nl]

wonderful interview , second one in a row that I have seen. excellent content.

[@gylbertfarwynd988]

Love this Fraser! I’ve been super interested in Nautilus ever since your first series on future telescopes. I think it is such a novel and cool way to build space telescopes. You asked phenomenal questions to Daniel and did an awesome job with this interview! Thanks for all you do👊🏼

[@Leggize]

❤

[@Leggize]

❤❤❤❤

[@nicolasy3392]

Thank you Fraser Cain , for the amazing interview with Dr Daniel Apai covering the amazing new telescope being produced right now & the existing fantastic JWST . It all is absolutely amazing that what we have achieved so far . Like WOW ! JWST images are phenomenal. I love this channel & Fraser all topics you cover on your amazing channel is phenomenal hence why i love supporting your channel being a patreon 🫶🏼🫶🏻🫶🏽💖✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️ With Love and light from Niki here in the UK 🇬🇧 Stay Connected 🫶🫶🏽🫶🏻🫶🏼🫶🏿💖😊💖✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️

[@martinwilliams9866]

I love the concept of the fast fourier transform array, which could even be used to turn everyone's smart phone into one Earth sized telescope.

[@19vangogh94]

Beautiful interview, thank you!

[@jameshoffman552]

SLS?- you’re talking about the economics and cost of launches and you mention SLS?

[@richardcollings4736]

as everyone has said another great interview and so many exciting things to look forward to

[@jerrypolverino6025]

This is wonderful. I am 77 years old. I remember when Mount Palomar was a big deal. I only wish I can be around to see what the next generation of space telescopes is going to reveal.

[@jimrohrich2625]

Fascinating topic. Thank you.

[@spoofghost]

So indept really love these! Thanks

[@josephgardner5891]

is there an origami folding that could unroll pinwheel lens for packing. and material that can make both the shade and optical and radio receiving surfaces that can be shaped accurately . maybe sort of blow-up like a toy. then fixed by chemistry freezing it into a ridged surfaces?

[@Quartermaster_77]

The next generation of telescopes... what an Enterprise!

[@peteedwards8439]

If you take a sheet of clear mylar film, and a sheet of silvered mylar film, or similar, and put them one on top the other, then you cut them into a circle and weld the edge together you will have an envelope the shape of a balloon. You can add pressurized gas when it is in space and it will unfold into a mirror making the main dish of a reflecting telescope. Its size and internal gas pressure forms the shape, and you can make it harden in sunlight so you can have a mirror of immense size very cheaply made. All you need to do is position it wherever you want it in space. You can park it over the middle east to keep those countries cool and you can sell advertising space on the back. You can use it to concentrate sunlight on asteroids or the moon for mining activities or focus sunlight for conversion into solar power on the moon or on satellites. Why would you not want to put some money into such a project as this?

[@justingreen8572]

The Terrascope is a much better use of our time and only requires one Starship to orbit at the distance of the moon to have a telescope with a lens of over 24K KM. Which would allow us to actually see near by exo planets with ease.

[@averyjeromekelly5735]

"Quantity has a quality of its own", well said

[@VictorKelly-ms6so]

The casings that you ejected in space could be made to fold out like spokes tethering each telescope with corresponding partners, even memory materials that go back to form once released, voila, you have a preformed shape to increase and maintain a predetermined orbit. or build a platform that does what I said except it extends out like spokes, your distance, your strength requirements... it should have a power collection system and be adjustable. Further expansion would require extending the frame infrastructure, the central point would house the communication/central guidance system for alignment with desired objects through ion propulsion tech. located on the outer frame... the array as well could individually direct each telescope.

[@anildhope1]

Nice to know the new concept of multiple telescope in space which can be combined to act as single telescope or multiple array of single telescope. Wonderful concept.

[@D0li0]

Just started listening... but why not simply put receivers on the back sides of every SpaceX StarLink and have an earth sized omnidirectional telescope? After that, have some start to trail the earths orbit and eventually have an earths orbit sized constellation?

[@davidmcsween]

And wow, you get a high fidelity wide field instrument that is remarkable. Amazing

[@wavemaker54]

Great interview as usual and an intriguing concept and project. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to hear him say, “I’ll be back”, since to me he sounded so much like Arnold Schwarzenegger.🙂

[@davidmcsween]

It also sounds like that instead of temporal shifting the imaging sets you could perform an effect called pixel shifting in photography. Where you get to sample the same image from a sub resolution offset. Which you resemble a sharper image.

[@brianorca]

I think quantum effects would limit that. The pixels would probably be already close to the quantum diffraction limit for that lens size. Overcoming that limit would require interferometry, which they discussed as having problems which are not addressed by this design, such as needing very high precision in where each telescope is located.

[@iamours]

This was a very exciting and fascinating interview. One of your best. This has an evolution level perception modification feel to it. Along with possible capability with the superconducting patent filed in Korea last month, we are going into a new phase of technology assisted perception change. The heavens seem to be on their way to a very clear focus for humanity.

[@donaldstewart9873]

I can't wait!

[@ericsonhazeltine5064]

The name is OK but I appreciate naming the scopes after people who have made significant progress. Such as Mr Webb. I therefore submit a proposal to identify this development as the PAST - the Pamela Anderson Space Telescope. As Pamela has brought more happiness to the world than anyone else. And is a star that eclipses even Sol in her beauty.

[@Thorocious]

I like the idea of this nautilus, there is a similar idea that Dr David Kipping came up with over on cool worlds calling it the terra scope. Its similar in design in terms of several 'satelitte' telescopes but where it differences in design is that they use the grational lens of large bodies such as earth (thus the name terra) or larger, like the sun.

[@frasercain]

The Terrascope is about using the Earth's atmosphere as a lens, but you'll still want to look at it with a telescope. So, you could use the Nautilus to look through the Earth's atmosphere and become the Terrascope.

[@jamesbell8861]

Exciting !!!

[@chrisclark6154]

Glad to hear that this technology can be used for cheaper and larger aperture amateur telescopes. Would love to have my own 1m f3 telescope. The point about collimation is excellent. My 8" newtonian needs collimating every time I haul it out for use. The refractors never need it.

[@arcadiaberger9204]

A telescope of many small lenses/mirrors "flying in formation" has a lot of promise.

[@goyya888]

Thanks!

[@ozne_2358]

If you can build large and cheap meta-lenses, I can see a market for large and light weight amateur telescopes. Because of the atmosphere, you could even have them with lower quality.

[@tbix1963]

Interesting concept, similar to a concept I had a few years back when everyone was complaining about the starlink satellite system effecting space observation. My suggestion was add a high precision camera to the top of every starlink looking out. Make the data available to anyone one below for free in an open source live transmitted signal and available to others anywhere at a subscription fee. Yes there would be problems linking all the clips of data together but that’s a computational problem not a physical one.

[@juliusfucik4011]

What would that do? The cameras would not be telescopes. It is a dumb idea, sorry.

[@GadZookz]

Fantastic!👍🏻

[@charlesblithfield6182]

I’m intrigued by the idea of a precise array of mirrors and a star occlusion device (flower petal?) far away to image planets. To set up for one image however could take considerable energy because of the distances involved between the light gathering components and the occlusion device, and also locating the mirrors. I’ve also wondered about the limits of such a system - is it possible to image say continents within a distance of 100 light years?

[@JFJ12]

I think eventually we will have to build Solar System wide astronomical arrays with "quantum-coupled" optics, combined with all other planet and earth based systems, fed into a computer program, to give us the best possible images. You could even imagine interstellar configurations, but it would take centuries to build and gather information from them.

[@frasercain]

Hah, I think you just mashed together all the best ideas for next generation telescopes. Put them at the solar gravitational lens.

[@althomas6045]

great talk

[@kashmirha]

Üdvözlet földi (=szegedi)! A kiejtésed elárult. :)) Greetings Mr Apai, you are from my hometown! Excellent, exciting work.

[@celestromel]

Transformational indeed! If it really works in practice, ZWO and Celestron should be listening carefully - I can’t wait!

[@user-nw2si7hu3u]

Amazing ❤

[@AscanioVitale]

Thank you, Fraser! Such great interviews and insights. Love your kind and strictly scientific approach to the topic. One Q: I wonder how a weaker or stronger gravity, given the same initial conditions for life as Earth, would have affected the formation of DNA and evolution in its entirety. Would either scenario influence the presence of life on the surface of a planet, making the search for bio signatures in the atmosphere only a limited tool? It would be nice to see how the single change in external parameters (temperature, pressure, gravity…) would have affected our fundamental structure. It might help widening the definition of “goldilocks zone” and the kind of life we expect to find, eventually.

[@johnnysparkleface3096]

Well, it looks like I won't be alive to see the full scale version of this thing operating in space (because I'm old). I'll have to settle for a smaller, proof-of-concept version. Even that should be pretty amazing.

[@SteveBakerIsHere]

Two questions I was hoping you'd ask: 1) How much does mass-production save in manufacturing these things. 2) If you inflate the balloons - doesn't the gas inside the balloon interact with the incoming light and dominate the spectral lines that you're trying to measure?

[@jamesdelrogers542]

Has anyone explored using electro Magnetic fields as a lens , If they are powerful enough they can be used to modulate the trajectories of photons

[@gunnargronvall9385]

An absolutely fantastic project that I found very hard to materialise!

[@gameover-uh9fz]

There might be a possibility which was not talked about: a tool for molding 6 meter lenses with this technology might also be used to spitting out 200mm lenses for consumer level telescopes. With these numbers you could "print" 697 smaller 200mm lenses with mostly the same tools that was used for making the 6000mm telescope lens if its really possible.

[@Bwizzie_Reborn]

Fascinating next ten years of cosmology

[@DS-uy6jw]

I love the idea of being able to add them together. The more I think about it, the more upsides there seem to be?

[@MozartificeR]

I like this idea for the L2 point. And you can just keep sending them if they fail:) Very good idea, and a very good idea for the L2 point. I think its a much better idea that Luvoir telescope in development, specially for imaging planets.

[@ioanbota9397]

Wow its incredible realy I like it

[@pierrelataillade7564]

Good to hear a different perspective on the subject..... my thought is that since we have a scope design.... and working, how would sending another webb up there and co-phase them.... that would equal to 16 or twice what's up there now....

[@mshepard2264]

I remember using a large C band satellite dish that was inflatable and looked like a beach ball. It sort of reminds me of this.

[@frasercain]

Oh interesting, I've never heard of that before, but it makes sense.

[@MrTizenhatkarakter]

Can’t wait to see the first class of mass produced space telescope _systems_! Sounds like rebuilding SKA in space 🎉 Why not build a dozen more JWSTs and arrange them into an array? This is definitely the future, sending the building blocks of a huge system separately then connecting them only at the final destination. It should’ve been done this way already

[@shaun5916]

Wonder if we’ll get to the point that it’s cheaper / easier to launch something vs build of equivalent performance in a remote location

[@matthewjacobs141]

As pictured ...how do you power each segment

[@bobbyshaftoe45]

It seems one could pull off a non-quantum-networked optical interferometry telescope of moderately large size [not km@10ly resolution but still pretty good] by using multiple lasers to transmit discrete wavelengths [ex. ir-R-G-B-uv] and recombine them optically rather than attempting to time digital data to achieve results. Deploying a constellation at KM distances all orbiting about a central combinatory scope in the middle... seems doable. I mean, LISA man! Heck, even LIGO. The ability to stabilize laser light over KM distances to sub-wavelength distances is well established and not "magic" [anymore]. This would be a compelling stepping stone to a full meters@LY resolution quantum-network "powered" >AU-diameter interferometry telescope..

[@bobbyshaftoe45]

Additionally, one could use optical fibers over a ~xKM distance for the optical information collection and use lasers for spatial-measure/alignment "Station Keeping".

[@TheAlphacad]

Great idea. It's size may be it's biggest problem. How can it be protected from damage.

[@backyard4465]

Could you market at present two lens solutions, one all of the optical components required to make an 12/18/24 inch, refractor telescope and two a replacement eye lens for the blind which would help with restoring eyesight?

[@meesalikeu]

dr apai bring this on yes yes yes 🎉

[@celestromel]

Wow! The potential …!

[@martinwilliams9866]

Such a great demonstration of intelligence. What about using light field cameras combined with fast former transform arrays?

[@kjelldidriksen1082]

What about warping of the materials due to heat from sunlight exposure? Or expansion of the gas used to inflate the telescopes? Would not that disturb the accuracy of the reflectors?

[@bambusbjorn3508]

Nautilus ... you gotta love the name!

[@AnakinSkywalker-mm3gi]

This is getting out of hand...now there are two of them!

[@rezadaneshi]

Don’t stare at the blue light.

[@misteryummyearth1055]

We need 10 of them, why let aliens have all the fun alone, you earthlings are so mediocre and short sighted

[@ericpetersen8407]

they are like blondes….. the more, the merrier!!! plus don’t have to have a conversation, they can do that!

[@poletooke4691]

..? Two of what?

[@adamklosterman8960]

They don't get it.

[@andrewhillis9544]

WHEN STARSHIP COMES ONLINE WE CAN GET SOME SERIOUSLY BIG TELESCOPES INTO ORBIT AS WELL AS OTHER VERY USEFUL PAYLOADS ! ! !👍

[@Jenab7]

Is this multi-component telescope going to be used as an interferometer, or will it sacrifice this potential boost in resolving power?

[@Urgelt]

There aren't many science topics that are more important than this one. An optical telescope constellation is an exciting idea. Love the progress on lenses. Problem: energy for maneuvers and control. Problem: cooling. The graphic you showed of a deploying constellation doesn't inspire confidence that either energy or cooling have been addressed. Stupid thought: are you or your guest aware of AESA radar designs? I was wondering if there might be a way to develop compact radio telescopes of high sensitivity by harnessing AESA design principles. Launch costs won't ever be ignorable, but Starship should be able to lower costs significantly - including the cost of deploying instruments far from Earth, once refueling Starship in orbit becomes a reality. And it ought to be possible to use Starship itself as a telescope housing - though vibration dampening might be a challenge. The good part? Lots of mass capacity for maneuvers and endurance and for solar panels and radiators. Thanks for this interview, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

[@JohnBoen]

"Inching" your way to a 50 "meter" telescope. You just reminded me that I need to change my idioms :)

[@frasercain]

Centimetering your way to a 50-meter telescope doesn't have the same ring to it.

[@apocraphontripp4728]

Hey crazy question. What would happen if you got every amateur and professional telescope, in a hemisphere, and aimed them all at one point? Would you get a super image by using the same approach as combing many space telescopes? Except this telescopes is hemisphere sized. Could it work?

[@user-rt2hp2sg5v]

Seems like it could be even cheaper to build the visible light collecting power on earth. Potentially even just start by using the ones that are already available and connect them using this thing called the internet.

[@WetDoggo]

How do they plan to manage orbital drift? the seperate mirrors will move relative to each other. Also they should take gravitational attraction into account, which is not much but will influence the formation. they will have to include thrusters for each lens

[@frasercain]

They're not an interferometer, so the precision doesn't have to be perfect.

[@jamesstader6650]

Question: how do you coordinate each mini disk to focus on say one object. How are they orientated?

[@frasercain]

Each one would have its own target, or you'd point them all at the same target and then just merge together the data they collect.

[@saumyacow4435]

Has anyone considered building an extremely large mirror out of micromirrors? Same tech as in projectors. Made as thousands of chips. The nice part is the fine positioning is built in. So the large scale assembly is simple

[@frasercain]

Sort of. Some engineers have built a flat lens made up of a series of chips. Their prototype is pretty small, but there's no reason it couldn't scale up to gigantic telescopes over time. www.universetoday.com/160510/researchers-build-a-telescope-with-a-flat-lens/

[@amirsafari7140]

Showing some pictures that was taken by prototype lenses would be good

[@HobbesNJoe]

Just ensure they fly with the hardware they’d need to operate as an interferometer. We’ll figure out how to make it work later. Additionally, I recommend multi-spectrum RF telescopes. To be used as an interferometer. Just in case. Make the data stream publicly available and you won’t have a funding problem any more.

[@user-ln5nk7mg4v]

Perhaps a collaboration of your guest with the solar sail maker that you interviewed recently might be wise.

[@clydecox2108]

Exciting news…

[@jamesdelrogers542]

I'm curious if there would be an advantage to putting a telescope outside of the Kuipler belt

[@SjaakSchulteis]

It would probably take more than 10 years of travel time to send a telescope to the outer rim of the kuiper belt.

[@jamesdelrogers542]

@@SjaakSchulteis Yes with current Rockets technologies , Starship Could Change that . Just the amount of propelling that it can put up Into orbit , And the use of nuclear Rockets , Look into the Kewi reactor program the nineteen seventies . You might feel to get the travel time down 2 1 fourth of that .

[@SjaakSchulteis]

@@jamesdelrogers542 I think it would be great, but what benefit would you have? The James Webb Telescope looks billions of lightyears into the past from the position where it is. Having a telescope beyond the kuiperbelt would not give so much advantage as the objects would be only a few light hours closer.

[@cagecurrent]

This is so interesting, both when it comes to the conversation as well as the project. I think SpaceX should fund this to compensate for how they block the sky for the astronomers with Starlink. :)

[@mikeconnery4652]

Will telescopes point out from the north and south poles? It seems the best route to approach earth.

[@JimRiven]

Just found this on my recommended list. And while that's great and everything, it does make me wonder why I never received a notification or why it doesn't show on my subscriber feed.... Very odd.

[@leberdusk]

Looking at Dr. Daniel's headphones, the DT700 ProX. The project is off to a good start already! jk;) Best wishes for success to you and your colleagues, Dr.!

[@Kitsaplorax]

How do we get a Crowd funded home version going?

[@s.l.nicholson4240]

I'm beginning to believe that our 1st contact will be us seeing them through a colossus type telescope.

[@TheHeavenman88]

This gave me hope , and it seems like the type of Projects Elon would jump on . So theoretically if we put 1k plus of these in orbit , we could have a >1km size telescope?? this is insanity....

[@anichtyofagist]

Could these telescopes use the metamaterial lenses that are now under development?