NASA - 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View

[Jackalope]

I read somewhere that we might have telescopes powerful enough in 50 years to actually see these planets in detail.

The first challenge is direct imaging - being able to resolve the planetary disk from it's host star (which is many orders of magnitude brighter). We already have the technology to mask out the stellar disk.

Interferometry will be a big help here - the basic idea is that you use two (or more) telescopes. Doing so increases the light-gathering capability additively, but the angular resolution possible is a function of the distance between the telescopes (e.g. two telescopes 100m apart potentially has the angular resolution of a telescope with a 100m wide objective mirror/lens).

Earth-based interferometry is limited - by atmospheric distortion, as well as by practical limits on separation. However - imagine a space-based interferometer with objectives located millions of miles apart.... Fairly modest telescopes could be capable of angular resolution many many orders of magnitude more than what we have accomplished so far. This isn't blue-sky technology either - it's within reach today.

I don't know about detailed "images" - but using interferometry in conjunction with spectroscopy will tell us a lot about the composition of extrasolar planets, particularly the chemical composition of the atmosphere. We can deduce a lot from atmospheric composition, including whether or not life (as we know it) is likely present.

It'll happen - but before we can get really serious about it, we'll need a large list of targets, such as those that discovered by the Kepler mission.

It's an exciting time.

[Cyberman]

I read somewhere that we might have telescopes powerful enough in 50 years to actually see these planets in detail.

There is a technique for doing this, but the technology is a fair way off yet I think; certainly greater than fifty years. Basically it involves gravitational lensing, the fact that high concentrations of gravity warp space so as to act like an optical lens; applying this fact to nearby galaxies, astronomers have already been able to image and photograph galaxies literally on the other side of the Universe. There are problems involving multiple images of these distant galaxies which can require correction and processing if it's considered necessary, but the principle is sound.

Like any lens, a gravtational lens has a focal point at which the magnified image is brought into sharp focus. Now, if we could place a powerful space telescope in a stable orbit right at our Sun's focal point, some 550 AU (550 times the average Earth-Sun distance) out, it could be possible to use the whole Solar System as a vast refracting telescope with the Sun as its lens. I've read articles which talk about being able to resolve exoplanets many lightyears away in such detail as to be able to see objects on their surface. I don't know about that so much, but the resolving powers of the technique would indeed be awesome, and as advanced over our current telescope technology as the first telescope would have been over the original basic light-detecting cells that eventually evolved into eyes.

Combine that with the intereferometry technique, using two or - ideally - many more space telescopes placed in strategic orbits at the Sun's focal point (which would form a sphere around the Sun at the appropriate distance, of course) and the direct imaging powers at our disposal would become almost god-like.