As we saw with JWST, it's difficult and expensive to launch large telescope apertures, relying on origami techniques to unfold the full mirror. A new paper proposes that telescope mirrors could be made out of a thin polymer that's only 200 micrometers thick. It could be rolled up inside a rocket fairing and then unrolled once it gets to space. This could allow apertures vastly larger than anything currently in space, with several working together as an interferometer.

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