Quantum computers could help sharpen images of exoplanets - New Scientist

An artist’s impression of an exoplanetESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser) Quantum computers may help us see more exoplanets – and see them in more detail too. Astronomers have now found thousands of planets beyond our solar system, but they anticipate that there are actually billions of these exoplanets out there. Identifying and studying them is an integral part of the search for extraterrestrial life, but doing so is technically challenging because they are so distant from Earth. Johannes Borregaard at Harvard University and his colleagues argue that quantum computers may significantly improve the process.Advertisement Read moreStrange lemon-shaped exoplanet defies the rules of planet formation To image exoplanets, researchers must collect light signals that these planets emanate, but such signals tend to be weak after travelling great distances through space. Moreover, the signals are often made noisy or partially obscured by light from nearby stars. Borregaard says his colleagues at NASA helped him realise that the problem may be as hard as looking for just one particle of light, or photon, for every second of a telescope’s operation. Free newsletter Sign up to The Weekly The best of New Scientist, including long-reads, culture, podcasts and news, each week. Sign up to newsletter Processing such weak signals is difficult with conventional methods, but a quantum computer could store a series of incoming photons’ quantum states, then leverage their quantum properties to extract information about the exoplanet, he says. In this way, an analysis that may normally only result in an image too blurry to tell an exoplanet apart from its star – or that renders it as a single fuzzy dot – could produce sharper depictions of the exoplanet in space. It might even allow researchers to pick out light-based fingerprints of molecules on the exoplanet. Advertisement Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.