The flower-shaped starshade that might help us detect Earth-like planets | Jeremy Kasdin

Translator: Lucia Lichá Reviewer: Maros Gardon

The universe is teeming with planets.

Vesmír je plný planét.

Počas najbližšieho desaťročia chceme vytvoriť teleskop,

I want us, in the next decade,

to build a space telescope that'll be able to image

ktorým uvidíme planéty obiehajúce okolo iných hviezd

an Earth about another star

and figure out whether it can harbor life.

a zistíme, či je na nich možný život.

My colleagues at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

S kolegami z NASA Laboratória prúdového pohonu (JPL) v Princetone

at Princeton and I are working on technology

pracujeme na technológii,

that will be able to do just that in the coming years.

ktorá nám to v najbližších rokoch umožní.

Astronomers now believe that every star

Astronómovia si myslia,

in the galaxy has a planet,

že každá hviezda v galaxii má planéty.

and they speculate that up to one fifth of them

Asi pätina z nich by mohla mať planéty podobné Zemi,

have an Earth-like planet

that might be able to harbor life,

na ktorých by mohol byť život,

but we haven't seen any of them.

ale zatiaľ sme žiadnu nevideli.

We've only detected them indirectly.

Objavili sme ich iba nepriamo.

This is NASA's famous picture of the pale blue dot.

Toto je známy NASA obrázok bledomodrej bodky.

It was taken by the Voyager spacecraft in 1990,

Urobila ho sonda Voyager v roku 1990.

when they turned it around as it was exiting the solar system

Keď opúšťala Slnečnú sústavu, otočili ju,

to take a picture of the Earth

aby odfotila Zem zo vzdialenosti 6 miliárd kilometrov.

from six billion kilometers away.

I want to take that

Chcem urobiť takúto fotku planéty ako Zem obiehajúcej okolo inej hviezdy.

of an Earth-like planet about another star.

Why haven't we done that? Why is that hard?

Prečo ju ešte nemáme? V čom je problém?

Well to see, let's imagine we take

Predstavte si, že otočíme Hubblov teleskop a presunieme ho na obežnú dráhu Marsu.

the Hubble Space Telescope

and we turn it around and we move it out

to the orbit of Mars.

We'll see something like that,

Získali by sme trochu rozmazanú fotografiu Zeme

a slightly blurry picture of the Earth,

because we're a fairly small telescope

urobenú pomerne malým teleskopom z obežnej dráhy Marsu.

out at the orbit of Mars.

Now let's move ten times further away.

Desaťnásobne zväčšíme vzdialenosť.

Here we are at the orbit of Uranus.

Sme na obežnej dráhe Uránu.

It's gotten smaller, it's got less detail, less resolve.

Vidíme menšiu Zem v horšom rozlíšení.

We can still see the little moon,

Ešte stále vidíme mesiac.

but let's go ten times further away again.

Zase sa desaťnásobne vzdiaľme.

Here we are at the edge of the solar system,

Sme v Kuiperovom páse na okraji Slnečnej sústavy.

out at the Kuiper Belt.

Now it's not resolved at all.

Úplne sme prišli o rozlíšenie.

It's that pale blue dot of Carl Sagan's.

Toto je tá bledomodrá bodka Carla Sagana.

But let's move yet again ten times further away.

Opäť sa desaťnásobne vzdialime.

Here we are out at the Oort Cloud,

Sme v Oortovom oblaku, už mimo Slnečnej sústavy,

outside the solar system,

and we're starting to see the sun

a do zorného poľa sa nám začína okrem planéty dostávať aj Slnko.

move into the field of view

and get into where the planet is.

One more time, ten times further away.

Opäť sa desaťnásobne vzdialime.

Now we're at Alpha Centauri,

Sme pri najbližšom susedovi, trojhviezde Alfa Centauri,

our nearest neighbor star,

and the planet is gone.

a planétu už nevidíme.

All we're seeing is the big beaming image of the star

Vidíme len veľkú žiarivú hviezdu desať miliárdnásobne jasnejšiu

that's ten billion times brighter than the planet,

which should be in that little red circle.

ako je planéta v červenom krúžku.

That's what we want to see. That's why it's hard.

Toto chceme vidieť. Tu je ten problém.

The light from the star is diffracting.

Dochádza k difrakcii svetla z hviezdy.

It's scattering inside the telescope,

Vidíme len svetlo veľmi jasnej hviezdy prekrývajúce menej jasnú planétu.

creating that very bright image

that washes out the planet.

So to see the planet,

Na to, aby sme mohli vidieť planétu, sa najprv musíme zbaviť toho svetla.

we have to do something about all of that light.

We have to get rid of it.

I have a lot of colleagues working on

Veľa ľudí pracuje na úžasných technológiách s týmto cieľom.

really amazing technologies to do that,

but I want to tell you about one today

Chcel by som vám povedať niečo o tej najúžasnejšej,

that I think is the coolest,

and probably the most likely to get us an Earth

vďaka ktorej možno získame v ďalšom desaťročí našu fotku.

in the next decade.

It was first suggested by Lyman Spitzer,

Ako prvý ju navrhol v roku 1962 Lyman Spitzer,

the father of the space telescope, in 1962,

ktorý navrhol aj vesmírny teleskop.

and he took his inspiration from an eclipse.

Inšpiroval sa zatmením Slnka.

You've all seen that. That's a solar eclipse.

Zatmenie ste už určite všetci videli.

The moon has moved in front of the sun.

Mesiac sa dostane pred Slnko.

It blocks out most of the light

Zatieni ho a vidíme len tlmenú korónu presvitajúcu okolo Mesiaca.

so we can see that dim corona around it.

It would be the same thing if I put my thumb up

Takto by som mohol palcom zatieniť sveto reflektora svietiace mi do očí

and blocked that spotlight that's getting right in my eye,

I can see you in the back row.

a videl by som aj ľudí v zadnom rade.

Well, what's going on?

O čo tu ide?

Well the moon

V podstate o to, že Mesiac vrhá tieň na Zem.

is casting a shadow down on the Earth.

We put a telescope or a camera in that shadow,

Keď do zatienenej oblasti dáme teleskop alebo fotoaparát

we look back at the sun,

a pozrieme sa na Slnko,

and most of the light's been removed

zbavili sme sa väčšiny svetla

and we can see that dim, fine structure

a môžeme vidieť peknú tlmenú štruktúru slnečnej koróny.

in the corona.

Spitzer's suggestion was we do this in space.

Spitzer navrhol, aby sme vytvorili veľkú clonu,

We build a big screen, we fly it in space,

we put it up in front of the star,

zatienili ňou hviezdu a zbavili sa tak väčšiny jej svetla.

we block out most of the light,

we fly a space telescope in that shadow that's created,

Do vytvoreného tieňa by sme umiestnili vesmírny teleskop

and boom, we get to see planets.

a hľa, vidíme planéty.

Well that would look something like this.

Vyzeralo by to asi takto.

So there's that big screen,

Napriek veľkej clone však nevidíme planéty.

and there's no planets,

because unfortunately it doesn't actually work very well,

Tento koncept nanešťastie veľmi nefunguje,

because the light waves of the light and waves

pretože ako pri teleskope bez clony aj tu dochádza k difrakcii svetla hviezdy.

diffracts around that screen

the same way it did in the telescope.

It's like water bending around a rock in a stream,

Svetlo "obteká" okolo clony ako voda v rieke okolo kameňa

and all that light just destroys the shadow.

a tým zničí náš tieň.

It's a terrible shadow. And we can't see planets.

Tieň je otrasný. A stále nevidíme planéty.

But Spitzer actually knew the answer.

Spitzer mal riešenie aj na toto.

If we can feather the edges, soften those edges

Zmeňme formu hrany tak,

so we can control diffraction,

aby sme zabránili difrakcii

well then we can see a planet,

a uvidíme planéty.

and in the last 10 years or so we've come up

Za posledných 10 rokov sa nám podarilo nájsť optimálne riešenie.

with optimal solutions for doing that.

It looks something like that.

Vyzerá asi takto.

We call that our flower petal starshade.

Je to hviezdne tienidlo v tvare kvetu.

If we make the edges of those petals exactly right,

Ak budú hrany lupeňov vyrobené správne

if we control their shape,

a budú mať správny tvar,

we can control diffraction,

dokážeme zabrániť difrakcii

and now we have a great shadow.

a získame skvelý tieň.

It's about 10 billion times dimmer than it was before,

Svetlo 10 miliárnásobne tlmenejšie

and we can see the planets beam out just like that.

a teraz už vidíme aj planéty.

That, of course, has to be bigger than my thumb.

Tienidlo bude väčšie ako palec.

That starshade is about

Bude asi také veľké ako polovica futbalového štadióna

the size of half a football field

and it has to fly 50,000 kilometers away from the telescope

a bude musieť odletieť 50 000 kilometrov od teleskopu,

that has to be held right in its shadow,

ktorý ostane v jeho tieni.

and then we can see those planets.

Potom uvidíme planéty.

This sounds formidable,

Táto myšlienka vzbudzuje rešpekt,

but brilliant engineers, colleagues of mine at JPL,

ale geniálni inžinieri z JPL prišli so skvelým dizajnom,

came up with a fabulous design for how to do that

ktorý vyzerá takto.

and it looks like this.

It starts wrapped around a hub.

Lupene sú ovinuté okolo nosníka.

It separates from the telescope.

Tienidlo sa oddelí od teleskopu.

The petals unfurl, they open up,

Lupene sa rozvinú, otvoria sa

the telescope turns around.

a teleskop sa otočí.

Then you'll see it flip and fly out

Potom sa otočí tienidlo,

ktoré odletí 50 000 kilometrov od teleskopu.

that 50,000 kilometers away from the telescope.

It's going to move in front of the star

Priletí pred hviezdu, presne tak ako to vidíte v simulácii,

just like that, creates a wonderful shadow.

a vytvorí nádherný tieň.

Boom, we get planets orbiting about it.

A hľa, už vidíme planéty, ktoré okolo hviezdy obiehajú.

(Applause)

(potlesk)

Thank you.

Ďakujem.

(potlesk)

That's not science fiction.

Toto nie je žiadna sci-fi.

We've been working on this for the last five or six years.

Na tomto projekte pracujeme už 5 alebo 6 rokov.

Last summer, we did a really cool test

Minulé leto sme uskutočnili test v Kalifornii

out in California at Northrop Grumman.

v spolupráci so spoločnosťou Northrop Grumman.

So those are four petals.

Tu vidíte 4 lupene tienidla v zmenšenej mierke.

This is a sub-scale star shade.

It's about half the size of the one you just saw.

Je asi o polovicu menšie ako to v simulácii.

You'll see the petals unfurl.

Vidíte rozvinutie lupeňov.

Those four petals were built by four undergraduates

Tieto 4 lupene vytvorili 4 študenti - stážisti v JPL.

doing a summer internship at JPL.

Now you're seeing it deploy.

Lupene sa rozmiestňujú.

Those petals have to rotate into place.

Musia zapadnúť na svoje miesto.

The base of those petals

Vždy musia zapadnúť na to isté miesto s presnosťou na desatinu milimetra.

has to go to the same place every time

to within a tenth of a millimeter.

We ran this test 16 times,

Otestovali sme ich 16-krát

and 16 times it went into the exact same place

a 16-krát zapadli na to isté miesto s presnosťou na desatinu milimetra.

to a tenth of a millimeter.

This has to be done very precisely,

Presnosť je nesmierne dôležitá,

but if we can do this, if we can build this technology,

ale ak túto technológiu skutočne vytvoríme

if we can get it into space,

a dostaneme ju do vesmíru,

you might see something like this.

uvidíme niečo takéto.

That's a picture of one our nearest neighbor stars

Toto je fotka nášho najbližšieho suseda,

taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.

ktorú urobil Hubbleov teleskop.

If we can take a similar space telescope,

Ak by sme do vesmíru vyslali o trochu väčší vesmírny teleskop

slightly larger,

put it out there,

fly an occulter in front of it,

a umiestnili predeň clonu,

what we might see is something like that --

uvideli by sme niečo také, ako je táto „rodinná fotka“ Slnečnej sústavy.

that's a family portrait of our solar system -- but not ours.

We're hoping it'll be someone else's solar system

Bola by to však fotografia inej slnečnej sústavy

as seen through an occulter,

urobená pomocou hviezdneho tienidla.

through a starshade like that.

You can see Jupiter, you can see Saturn,

Na tejto fotografii vidíte Jupiter, Saturn, Urán, Neptún

Uranus, Neptune, and right there in the center,

a tam v strede je tá bledomodrá bodka.

next to the residual light

is that pale blue dot. That's Earth.

To je Zem.

We want to see that, see if there's water,

Toto chceme vidieť.

Sú na planéte voda, kyslík a ozón?

oxygen, ozone,

the things that might tell us that it could harbor life.

Tieto veci by naznačovali prítomnosť života.

I think this is the coolest possible science.

Toto je to najúžasnejšie, čo veda priniesla.

That's why I got into doing this,

Pre toto robím svoju robotu.

because I think that will change the world.

Myslím si, že toto zmení svet.

That will change everything when we see that.

Keď uvidíme tieto veci, všetko sa zmení.

Thank you.

Ďakujem.

(Applause)

(potlesk)