On the one hand, Tess is being sent by scientists in space to have a close view of exoplanets. On the other hand, an international team has developed a 10,000 pixel camera called DARKNESS to snap the clear images of exoplanets from the earth. The word DARKNESS stands for “Dark-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer”. It is capable to identify and remove noise and dark current and small electric currents that pass through photosensitive instruments.
'This is a technology pathfinder for the next generation of telescopes."
With the help of DARKNESS, scientists can find out the wavelength and calculate the time of arrival of every single photon. This is possible because DARKNESS can snap thousands of frames every second.
“This technology will lower the contrast floor so that we can detect fainter planets, says DARKNESS scientist Dimitri Mawet of the California Institute of Technology in a press statement. "We hope to approach the photon noise limit, which will give us contrast ratios close to 10-8, allowing us to see planets 100 million times fainter than the star. At those contrast levels, we can see some planets in reflected light, which opens up a whole new domain of planets to explore. The really exciting thing is that this is a technology pathfinder for the next generation of telescopes."
It is very difficult to snap a picture of an exoplanet because of the brightness of the star which is stronger than the planet and the planet floats very near the star. That’s why distinguishing the star and the planet becomes very tricky. DARKNESS is capable to remove these technical problems and identify the planet clearly. Other instruments can’t avoid noise and dark current when they take snaps, however, DARKNESS can capture thousands of frames per second without any noise or dark current. So this advancement will help overcome several technical problems.
DARKNESS, A combination of the science camera and a focal-plane wave-front sensor, can evaluate the light instantly and deliver a signal back to a rubber mirror where it is converted into a new form 2000 times a second. This course of action helps remove atmospheric technical problems that cause stars to sparkle. If it occurs the image of the planets will not be clear or understandable. Other than that the process increase contrast ratio between the planet and the star so that the image of exoplanet can be identified clearly. In May, scientists will do more experiment to improve contrast ratio between the stars and the planets.
Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a19832598/exoplanet-camera-darkness/
http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/worlds-largest-superconducting-camera-darkness-can-spot-nearby-exoplanets-5142861/
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/04/the-worlds-most-advanced-camera-aims-to-image-habitable-exoplanets