Nulling interferometry breadboard
Nulling interferometry is a direct method to detect earth-like planets. To determine whether a planet is earth-like spectrometry can be performed which requires a broadband optical input signal from the planet. The star signal is roughly 106 times stronger than the planet signal. Nulling interferometry should decrease the broadband (λ ≈ 6-18 ?m) star signal by about this factor 106.