China challenges NASA with a space telescope that can be upgraded in orbit. (photo)

Chinese scientists have unveiled details about a future space telescope that will rival NASA's most powerful observatory—the Webb telescope. While the latter orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the new Chinese observatory, Xuntian, will orbit Earth near the "Tiangong" space station. According to the scientists, Xuntian will be as powerful as the Webb telescope, but its advantage lies in the fact that it can be repaired and upgraded in space. This means it can operate for a longer duration. An article detailing the capabilities of the Chinese telescope has been published on the preprint server arXiv, according to Live Science.

The Chinese space observatory is set to launch into orbit in 2026 and will feature a primary mirror with a diameter of 2 meters. Although this is slightly smaller than the mirror size of the Hubble Space Telescope, Xuntian's advanced optics will provide at least 300 times greater coverage of the cosmos. The telescope will observe the universe across a wide range of the light spectrum, from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared.

One of the main advantages of the Xuntian telescope is that it will orbit Earth on the same path as the Chinese space station "Tiangong." They won’t always be in close proximity, but they will occasionally come together. This will allow Chinese astronauts to perform repairs and maintenance on the telescope, as well as its upgrades. This is impossible for both the Hubble telescope, which is close to Earth, and the Webb telescope, which is far out in space. Thus, while these telescopes have a limited lifespan, Xuntian, scientists say, could operate for many decades in orbit, collecting valuable data about the universe.

According to Chinese scientists, one of the primary tasks of the new orbital observatory will be to measure weak gravitational lensing. Light from distant galaxies is slightly bent on its journey to us due to the curvature of space created by intervening galaxies. By studying hundreds of thousands of galaxies and looking for subtle distortions in their shapes, astronomers hope to create accurate maps of the distribution of matter in the universe. These maps may provide clues about the nature of dark matter, which makes up a significant portion of the universe's mass but cannot be seen directly.

On a larger scale, Xuntian will investigate voids and galaxy clusters. Voids are vast empty spaces between galaxies, while clusters are dense groups of galaxies. The properties of both voids and galaxy clusters, such as their size and how far apart they are, depend on the nature of dark energy, which accelerates the expansion of the universe. Therefore, scientists hope to understand the nature of this mysterious form of energy.

The Chinese telescope will also search for supernovae and measure baryon acoustic oscillations. The explosions of supernovae, which occur when massive stars die, will help refine the distances to distant galaxies, and thus the rate of the universe's expansion. Baryon acoustic oscillations are remnants from the time when the universe was in a plasma state over 13 billion years ago. This phenomenon will aid in better understanding the evolution of the cosmos.