The Solar Gravitational Lens will Map Exoplanets. Seriously.

Caption notes

Christian Ready presents a mission concept for imaging an exoplanet with the Sun’s gravity. The Sun bends light from the planet into an Einstein ring and produces a focal line. A spacecraft would have to travel far enough out, suppress solar glare with a coronagraph, and move sideways to measure the ring’s brightness at successive locations. Each measurement still mixes light from across the planet, so Ready uses a point spread function to explain how a blurred scan could be reconstructed. Solar sails and successive groups of small, self-assembling spacecraft belong to the mission design discussed in the video; the resolution shown comes from simulations.