NASA tests shrinking metals to help it find more exoplanets

NASA is exploring the properties of a metal alloy that shrinks as it is heated, as boffins in its Astrophysics Division think it may be needed if the planned Habitable Worlds Observatory (HBO) is to succeed.

Readers doubtless know that metals expand when heated. As explained in a NASA blog post that’s a problem for space telescopes because if their components warm and expand it can mean that the shape of their mirrors change in ways that make it harder to conduct observations.

NASA has already developed materials that compensate for those effects and used them in the James Webb Space Telescope and in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope that the aerospace agency intends to launch in 2027.

The HBO, NASA’s next space ‘scope project after the Nancy Grace Roman, will need even more resilient materials.

To understand why, the post explains how to observe exoplanets.

“As ...