To see the Universe in aluminium

Lightweight but robust, aluminium is the single most versatile space material. A new ESA project extends this versatility still further, by investigating the production of big aluminium mirrors for space-based astronomy. Applying a novel technique, the team joined together multiple aluminium segments to form a single mirror. The resulting surface had to be optically perfect however, with no trace left of joins in the combined metal.

#engineering #technology #space #science #esa #europeanspaceagency
posted by pod_feeder_v2