Re:Euclid's First Images
by gosub100 on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:50AM
(#38189692)
It's a huge piece of very pure glass, that has a precise uniform shape down to the nanometers scale. Another thing that I learned is they are first ground to a spherical shape, then a parabolic. It's a very time consuming process, although I don't have exact data.
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And it’s time consuming partly because so few are made.
I guess the unit price could come down by 90% or more if you were to order a million of them, and could convince a manufacturer that you’re good for the money.
(And you may get something that’s superior, for example because they figure out that, at a million copies, extra money spent improving the software for adaptive optics can be more than made up by making the hardware a bit less rigid)
We’re spoilt by the amazing efficiencies of mass manufacturing.