To Improve Astronomic Measurements, Scientists Want To Launch A Light Bulb Into Space
Light Bulb in Darkness Wikimedia Commons Before you can peer back in time 13.2 billion years, your telescope needs to be calibrated correctly, so you can be sure objects in your mirror are really as bright (and therefore as distant) as they appear. Astronomers have a few tricks to help them do this, including using light bulbs and distant stars. Now one astronomer has a simple calibration solution: put a light bulb in space. For both ground-based and space-based telescopes, the atmosphere adds some uncertainty, because it absorbs some light and can affect telescopes' measurements. (Orbiting telescopes don't look through the atmosphere, of course, but you can't cross-check their calibrations from Earth without its effects.) When you want to get really precise data, you would want to know how much light is absorbed. To solve this problem, Justin Albert at the University of Victoria in Canada proposes putting a light bulb...