Scallops Have Eyes, and Each One Builds a Beautiful Living Mirror
The structures are so complex that they almost defy belief.
In 2019, if everything goes according to plan, the much-delayed James Webb Space Telescope will finally launch into orbit. Once assembled, it will use an array of 18 hexagonal mirrors to collect and focus the light from distant galaxies. This segmented-mirror design was developed in the 1980s, and it has been so successful that it will feature in almost all the large telescopes to be built in the near future.
But as always, nature got there first. For millions of years, scallops have been gazing at the world , each of which has a segmented mirror that’s uncannily similar to those in our grandest telescopes. And scientists have just gotten a good look at one
