SEE not infer.

The technology does not use glass lenses nor reflective mirrors but an advanced form of a pinhole camera, the "pinhole" technique is called Fresnel zone plates.

New Scientist article.

The technical hurdles would be tricky but nothing unbelievable.

Essentially we would need to launch two spacecraft.: one is the "lens" and one is the "receptor".  The focal point using the Fresnel method is kilometers away from the lense, ergo the two spacecraft solution.

Go read the whole article, just fascinating.

Feeds right into this post: Planet Hunting, The Next Generation - The Lyot Project

We gotta keep this telescope operational: Hubble discovers 67 new gravitationally lensed galaxies

What is gravitational lensing?

Gravitational lensing occurs when light travelling toward us from a distant galaxy is magnified and distorted as it encounters a massive object between the galaxy and us. These gravitational lenses often allow astronomers to peer much farther back into the early universe than they would normally be able to do.

Here is a cool video of an Einstein Ring.

An Einstein ring is a complete circle image of a background galaxy, which is formed when the background galaxy, a massive, foreground galaxy, and the Hubble Space Telescope are all aligned perfectly.

Therein creating a complete circle lense effect.

So pretty pictures are nice, but what impact do these discoveries have on astro-physics?  Well read on dear surfer, read on.

...they can be used to create a census of galaxy masses in the universe to test the predictions of cosmological models.

Basically, since we understand how gravity works here, and we can get estimates of galaxy size out there, we can then compare and contrast and see if gravity remains constant from one side of the visible universe to the other.

In our modern world we take the fact that anyone can just go click-click-click and see any number of amazing pictures from the Hubble Space Tellescope.

We don't even think about how unimaginably amazing this would be for someone from 1950-60-70 even the 1980s, not to mention earlier than that.  NOBODY saw stuff like this.  And now here it is served to you on your home LCD screen.

Accelerating returns indeed.

I now end your daily Kurzweil minute with this picture.