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Observatory Images

LUVOIR-A (15-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with star field background.
LUVOIR-A (15-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with star field background. Credit: NASA GSFC
LUVOIR-A (15-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with transparent background.
LUVOIR-A (15-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with transparent background. Credit: NASA GSFC
LUVOIR-B (8-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with transparent background.
LUVOIR-B (8-m telescope diameter) observatory rendering with transparent background. Credit: NASA GSFC
Rendering of the LUVOIR-B observatory inside a SpaceX Starship launch fairing.
Rendering of the LUVOIR-B observatory inside a SpaceX Starship launch fairing. Credit: NASA GSFC / SpaceX
Rendering of the LUVOIR-A observatory inside an SLS Block 2 launch fairing.
Rendering of the LUVOIR-A observatory inside an SLS Block 2 launch fairing. Credit: NASA GSFC / NASA MSFC

Science Images

LUVOIR's science capabilities compared to the Hubble Space Telescope's.
LUVOIR will revolutionize huge areas of space science. Its sensitivity and spatial resolution open the door to the ultra-faint and ultra-distant regime, enabling detailed observations of the full variety of galaxies. LUVOIR will dramatically increase the sample size and diversity of exoplanets that can be studied, providing dozens of Earth-like exoplanet candidates that can be probed for signs of life (54 with LUVOIR-A and 28 with LUVOIR-B) and hundreds of non-habitable exoplanets (648 with LUVOIR-A and 576 with LUVOIR-B). Finally, LUVOIR will provide near-flyby quality observations of solar system bodies. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Pluto image from Buie et al. 2010. Credits: NASA / New Horizons / M. Postman (STScI) / A. Roberge (NASA GSFC)
Simulated LUVOIR image of the inner Solar System from a distance of 33 light years.
Imaging another Earth. Simulation of the inner solar system in visible light viewed from a distance of 40 light-years with the 15-m LUVOIR-A space telescope concept. The enormous glare from the central star has been suppressed with a coronagraph instrument so the faint planets can be seen. Each planet's atmosphere can be probed with direct spectra to reveal its composition. The simulation assumes realistic noise sources, wavefront errors, and post-processing. Credit: R. Juanola Parramon, N. Zimmerman, A. Roberge (NASA GSFC)
Expected numbers of different types of exoplanets discovered in the LUVOIR habitable planet candidate survey.
LUVOIR will discover dozens of habitable planet candidates and hundreds of other kinds of exoplanets. The chart shows exoplanet detection yields from an initial 2-year survey optimized for habitable planet candidates with LUVOIR-A (blue bars) and -B (green bars). The first column shows the expected yields of habitable planet candidates. Non-habitable planets are detected concurrently during the 2-year survey. Color photometry is obtained for all planets. Orbits and partial spectra capable of detecting water vapor and/or methane are obtained for all habitable planet candidates. Credit: C. Stark (STScI) / J. Friedlander (NASA GSFC)
A distant low-mass galaxy imaged with Hubble, a future extremely large ground-based telescope, and LUVOIR.
LUVOIR can routinely reveal the internal details of galaxies. Simulations of a distant low-mass galaxy (at z=2) imaged with a 2.4-m space telescope (top left), a 39-m future ground-based telescope (top right), and LUVOIR (bottom panels). These simulations all assume the same total exposure time (500 ksec, corresponding to 17 nights for the ground-based simulation). Credits: M. Postman, G. Snyder (STScI)
UV image of Europa with Hubble and simulated UV images of Europa with LUVOIR.
LUVOIR can monitor individual plumes from solar system ocean moons. The left panel shows an aurora on Europa observed with Hubble (Roth et al. 2014). This UV hydrogen emission comes from dissociation of water vapor in plumes escaping through the moon's ice shell. The center and right panels show simulations of how this emission from Europa might look observed with LUVOIR-B and -A. The moon's surface is bright due to reflected solar hydrogen emission, which was below the background in the Hubble image. Credit: G. Ballester (LPL) / R. Juanola-Parramon (NASA GSFC)

Documents

Recent Reports on LUVOIR-related Science and Technology

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