system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Since we use multiple telescopes on Earth to increase the resolution in interferometry, Is it possible to build a network of space telescopes around Earths orbit to make a space telescope around 2au wide?

Obviously I know the material requirements and precision would be a huge factor, but I'm looking more for scientific reasons it wouldn't be possible.
gpt
Nope, no major scientific barriers here. It's purely an engineering problem - albeit a very big one!

In addition to knowing the orientation and distance between all satellites at a very high precision, you also need to combine the data from all these telescopes at quite a high cadence. In optical and infrared astronomy, it isn't possible to do this digitally - you have to literally combine the beams on site. In radio astronomy, it's possible to do this digitally, which is why you can have unconnected radio telescopes across the world combining data to form the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Similarly, this is why it could be quite possible to spread a bunch of relatively cheap antennae on the far side of the Moon and get a nice low noise Moon sized radio telescope.

However, the amount of data you need can get quite big, especially as you look at higher frequencies (which is where you get the best resolution). Part of the delay for the EHT images of supermassive black holes is that the most efficient way to transmit that data was to put a bunch of hard drives on a boat and literally ship the data. Weather etc caused some delays in getting all the data in one place to be combined.

In space, this problem is way harder, just because of the distances involved. You need more powerful antennae, and it's not practical to send rockets filled with hard drives around every time.

So yeah, it's possible, it's just going to be tricky and risky, and there's a few smaller steps we should try first. Even a Moon-Earth scale telescope is still going to be a while away.