In science fiction, no spaceship is without its scanners. They enable a ship to see into surrounding space, into other spaceships, and even the outside and inside of their own ship. In sick bay, the medic uses a scanner to check over the bodies of the crew. All very convenient for the drama.
Today, we have medical scanners: x-ray, MRI, CT, but not yet as sophisticated as science fiction often envisages. But what about in space?
Would you call a telescope a scanner? They certainly scan the skies and beyond. Ground-based telescopes are continually improving, and have been built on mountaintops to get above the clouds. The latest one is the
Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile. Its the largest digital camera ever. The
first pictures have just been revealed.
Vera C Rubin Observatory Chile
The biggest advance came with telescopes in space, away from Earth’s atmosphere. According to
Wikipedia the list is very long. I was amazed when I looked it up how many telescopes we have up there. They fall into the following categories: gamma-ray, x-ray, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared and submillimetre, microwave, radio, particle detection, and gravitational waves. There are plenty more launches planned too.
James Webb Space Telescope
The famous one was the
Hubble Space Telescope, which gave us some amazing images, but now we have the
James Webb Space Telescope, designed to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest telescope in space, it is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. It is showing us things we have never seen before, or not in such detail.
James Webb Space Telescope image
As for those handy scanners the medics use in science fiction, there has actually been one developed. The
Butterfly iQ is a single-probe whole-body ultrasound system using semiconductor technology that connects to a tablet or smartphone to scan any part of the body within minutes. It’s already in use on the ground in NASA, but they are planning to send it to the Space Station on the next supply mission.
Ann Marie Thomas is the author of five medieval history books, a surprisingly cheerful poetry collection about her 2010 stroke and two further poetry collections, and the science fiction series Flight of the Kestrel, of which there are four books are out now. Follow her at http://eepurl.com/bbOsyz and get free books.
