…a team led by Laurent Koechlin of the Observatoire Midi Pyrénées in Toulouse, France, says a powerful “Fresnel imager” could be made by launching a piece of metal foil, cut with the Fresnel pattern and attached to a solid frame, into space. A spacecraft equipped with a camera and other scientific instruments would sit at the focal point some distance away and record the observations…

…A 30-metre Fresnel imager would be powerful enough to see Earth-sized planets within 30 light years of Earth, and measure the planets’ light spectrum to look for signs of life, such as atmospheric oxygen.

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