When will we have telescopes that can take clear pictures of other stars surfaces, or large extrasolar planets

are there any projects in the works that arent just crazy pipe dreams.. like a huge space interferometer?When will we have telescopes that can take clear pictures of other stars surfaces, or large extrasolar planets
The Hubble Telescope is probably as good as you will get. That cost mucho dinero and trying to convince people to spend more for a bigger and better model will be a hard sell.When will we have telescopes that can take clear pictures of other stars surfaces, or large extrasolar planets
I think it will be a looong time. There is always talk of the bext big thing. But nothing in the works will give us a surface shot of anything extrasolar.





You are right though about the interferometer. I'd like to see us place telescopes scattered in orbit around the sun. Talk about light gathering then!!! Even 10 or so cheaper ones in the same orbit as earth should be able to do something. Maybe with one in close like Mercury's orbit.
Some detail was already obtained on the surface of Betelgeuse (a red giant star), with existing telescopes (Hubble in 1995, with large arrays of radiotelescopes, and I think even with arrays of large telescopes with adaptive optics in interferometric setup)
The James Webb Space Telescope is moving into it's detailed design phase soon and is slated to launch in 6 or 7 years. It has a mirror with a diamter more than twice that of the Hubble. However it won't be used for looking at distant stars the way you describe.





To do that, it would require a telescope many times larger than what we have on Earth to resolve that kind of detail, and it would probably have to be in space. It would be extremely difficult to create such a scope with today's technology.
Hubble!


Right now!


You could look up the website and find out for yourself, but, boy, that would be too easy.