The AragoScope (NASA)

[soundwave]

So recently NASA unveiled some of their long-term mission ideas funding.

These include sending a Submarine probe to explore Titan's largest sea, building many small "spacecraft-on-a-chip" systems which would be deployed on Europa (for example) to do cost-effective science on the ground, and many more...

One of the ideas is called The AragoScope - Ultra High Resolution Optics at Low Cost.

There isn't a lot of info out there yet (from what I could gather), and I'm interested to know how it works exactly...

"The diagram in the summary chart shows a conventional telescope pointed at an opaque disk along an axis to a distant target. Rather than block the view, the disk boosts the resolution of the system with no loss of collecting area"

How? I have no idea 

I wonder if the disk somehow concentrates the light onto the telescope's smaller mirror, or something like that... it makes sense, but I can't see what makes it low cost (if it's a giant lens... but it seems like it's something else).

I'll try to find more info about it somehow.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting. I think these work by obtaining constructive interference from rays diffracted from the edges of the opaque sections. This then works as a synthetic aperture optical telescope (similar to many large radio telescopes). Although the resolution is comparable to a scope with the diameter of the outer ring, the amount of light gathered is much lower than for a solid mirror (but then the cost of that would be astronomical)

[Laurie61]

Could it be some type of Fresnel lens ?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Could it be some type of Fresnel lens ?

Not really, as a Fresnel lens uses refraction. I think this is a Fresnel imager, which combines a Fresnel zone plate with a conventional scope