12-03, 09:00–09:50 (Europe/Luxembourg), Banquet Room
The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) is a natural phenomenon caused by the Sun’s gravitational field bending and focusing light, as predicted by general relativity. This effect provides extraordinary light amplification and angular resolution, enabling detailed imaging and spectroscopy of faint, distant astronomical targets. A modest telescope with a coronagraph positioned in the SGL’s focal region, beginning at ~548 AU, could exploit these unique properties to achieve high-resolution imaging of exoplanets.
A meter-class telescope operating in the SGL focal region could produce multipixel images with resolutions of approximately 450×450 pixels for an Earth-like exoplanet located up to 100 light-years away. Such imaging would reveal surface features, atmospheric compositions, and biosignatures, providing critical insights into planetary habitability and potential life.
This presentation discusses the imaging properties of the SGL and introduces a mission concept to exploit its capabilities. Solar sail propulsion is identified as the enabling technology, allowing sailcraft to achieve heliocentric velocities of up to 7 AU/year with current materials. Advances in sail technology are expected to increase this to 20–25 AU/year within 5–7 years, enabling practical mission timelines to the SGL focal region within two decades.
The proposed mission leverages smallsat architectures and rideshare launch opportunities to minimize cost and complexity. The spacecraft would carry high-precision imaging systems, advanced spectrographs, and rely on sophisticated deconvolution algorithms to reconstruct high-resolution data from the Einstein ring formed by the SGL. Key challenges, including solar corona interference, navigation precision, and data transmission, are addressed through innovative engineering solutions.
By integrating advancements in solar sail propulsion, modular spacecraft design, and autonomous operations, the SGL mission offers a transformative opportunity to directly image and spectrally analyze distant Earth-like exoplanets. This cost-effective and scalable mission represents a groundbreaking approach to discoveries in exoplanetary science and the search for life beyond the Solar System.
Slava G. Turyshev is an astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, and a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He earned an M.S. in physics (with honors) and a Ph.D. in quantum field theory from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, in 1987 and 1990, respectively, and a Doctor of Science (D. Sc.) degree in astrophysics from the same university in 2008. Dr. Turyshev's research focuses on gravitational and fundamental physics, relativistic astrophysics, gravitational waves, and planetary science. His expertise encompasses high-precision spacecraft navigation, relativistic celestial mechanics, solar system dynamics, satellite and lunar laser ranging, detection and characterization of near-Earth objects (NEOs), and the development of advanced space technologies. Dr. Turyshev served as the NASA Project Scientist for the CNES/ESA MICROSCOPE mission (2016–2020), which conducted precision tests of the Equivalence Principle. Since 2015, he has been the JPL Principal Investigator for the Advanced Lunar Laser Ranging Facility at the Table Mountain Observatory, designed to enhance tests of general relativity and study the Moon’s deep interior. From 2003 to 2012, he was the Principal Investigator for the Pioneer Anomaly investigation, resolving a longstanding puzzle in spacecraft dynamics. Between 2017 and 2022, he led NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phases I–III as Principal Investigator, developing mission architectures to utilize the solar gravitational lens (SGL) for high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets. Since 2023, Dr. Turyshev has served as a member of the Executive Committee of NASA’s Fundamental Physics Advisory Group (FunPAG), advising on the strategic direction of space-based fundamental physics research. He has authored over 230 peer-reviewed research papers and two books and is an Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).