Scientists have announced plans to develop a liquid mirror telescope for use by astronauts on the Moon.

A reflective liquid containing silver would focus light. This would be easier for astronauts to transport than a solid mirror. The telescope that is envisioned, which would have reflective liquid poured into a 100 metre-wide disc-shaped mesh, would be able to see fainter objects than the James Webb Space Telescope. It would be eaiser to transport than a solid mirror.

Plans for the development of the telescope were published in Nature. The authors, Ermanno Borra, of Laval University, Quebec, and S. Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Vally, predict that the first lunar liquid-mirro telescope will be built no earlier than 2020.