What accessory is specifically required to physically block a host star's light during direct imaging of an exoplanet?
Answer
A coronagraph.
Direct imaging, the ultimate goal of capturing a planet's reflected light, requires physically separating the faint signal of the planet from the brilliant, overwhelming glare of its parent star. This separation is achieved by using an accessory called a coronagraph, which is designed to occult or block the central star's light path. While direct imaging is possible under specific circumstances—namely, large planets orbiting far from their stars, creating sufficient spatial separation—the resulting image is still only a faint, unresolved point of light, not a detailed picture of the world itself.
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