Mission New Worlds: The New Worlds mission is a space mission proposal being studied by...

Mission New Worlds: The New Worlds mission is a space mission proposal being studied by NASA. Its concept is based on the association of a space telescope with a large occulter (starshade) which places in space a long distance from it (several tens of thousands of kilometres) and designed to block the light of the central star in order to observe its exoplanets. Observations could be made with an existing space telescope, such as the James-Webb Space Telescope (JWST) once launched. A space telescope observes planets orbiting a distant star whose glare has been blocked by a flower-shaped screen the size of a football field. In reality, the starshade would be almost as far from the telescope as the moon is from earth.