NASA plans HOEE 100-meter starshade between Earth and Moon
NASA has a cool new idea: the Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE).
They're planning to send a massive, 100-meter-wide starshade into space, about 175000km above our atmosphere, between Earth and the Moon.
This giant starshade will help telescopes spot faint, distant planets that might be a lot like Earth.
Starshade blocks starlight revealing faint planets
The starshade acts like sunglasses for telescopes, blocking out bright starlight so we can actually see the tiny planets nearby.
NASA astrophysicist Vladimir Airapetian says this could let us find planets a billion times fainter than their stars.
The design uses flower-shaped petals and hydrogen thrusters to stay in place, all for about $1 billion, which is way cheaper than NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory.
If all goes well, this tech could totally level up our search for another Earth.