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From Darwin to Internet at the speed of light

26 November 2002

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ESA's Darwin mission may make Internet faster in the future Integrated optics being developed for the Darwin mission may make Internet faster.
In the future, Darwin, ESA's ambitious mission to find Earth-like planets, may also use integrated optics but using longer wavelengths of light than GENIE.

Credits: ESA 2002/Medialab

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Darwin will combine light from four or five telescopes and send it down to Earth.
ESA has a strategy to enable more sophisticated searches for extra-solar planets in the future. Two planned developments rely on combining the light from a number of different telescopes. Both could greatly benefit from this technology.

Credits: ESA 2002

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Integrated optics are used in this special camera Darwin will use an integrated optical system technology.
Should the integrated-optics approach work, the rewards would go far beyond a few improvements in searching for planets. Here on Earth, for all home-computer users, for example, it could speed up the Internet by 100-1000 times. The consequences of surfing the Web at such speeds would be amazing.

Credits: Pierre Kern, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, CNRS