NASA reveals four ideas for a new multi-billion dollar space telescope for the 2030s

The telescope will replace the James Webb Space Telescope, and is expected to be launched in March 2021

NASA has unveiled four potential concepts for a multi-billion dollar space observatory that could be launched some time in the 2030s, replacing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The space agency has not yet even launched the JWST, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is scheduled for launch in March 2021.

Details of the four mission-concept studies were presented earlier this month at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The idea is that astronomers should decide which design will be the best choice.

The four potential telescopes are named the Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR), the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx), the Lynx X-Ray Observatory, and the Origins Space Telescope. Each is designed to focus on a specific region or feature of the universe.

LUVOIR is essentially a beefed-up version of the Hubble Space Telescope. The 25-tonne instrument would be about 15 metres wide with six times greater resolution than Hubble. It would be capable of observing the universe in infrared, visible and ultraviolet wavelengths of light, and would seek to find signs of life on exoplanets, discover more about the evolution of stars and galaxies, and help to map dark matter in the universe.

The second proposed telescope, HabEx, would look exclusively for signs of potentially habitable planets around a Sun-like star. It would be launched with a companion sunflower-shaped "starshade" spacecraft designed to block interfering light from a nearby star. This should enable HabEx to examine faint exoplanets in more detail than currently possible.

The purpose of Lynx would be to succeed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in detecting X-rays emitted by black holes or supernovas. The telescope would enable scientists to understand how black holes form in the universe. It would also be able to observe formation of galaxy clusters and to study the birth and death of stars.

The last candidate, the Origins Space Telescope, is designed to study the mysteries of life in the universe, such as how habitable planets are formed. The telescope would analyse a specific band of infrared radiation emitted by cold gases and space dust that eventually merge to create planets and stars.

The Origins telescope would be about four times the size of the Herschel Space Observatory, a European mission that watched the universe in infrared light before ending its mission in 2013.