American astrophysicists have used the Decadal Survey (DS)—also called Astro 2020 and produced by the National Academies of Science—to recommend a space telescope capable of photographing potentially habitable worlds.

The report recommends that a flagship space observatory will need a six-meter mirror to “provide an appropriate balance between scale and feasibility.”

An eight-meter aperture telescope of the scale of LUVOIR-B would be unlikely to launch before the late 2040… See more.