A Plan to Build a Giant Liquid Telescope on the Moon
Even by astronomical standards, Roger Angel thinks big.
Angel, a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel's telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars.
"It's an idea that's been around, and we decided to flesh it out," Angel says.
