ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Mangin mirror

Ok kiddo, do you know what a mirror is? It's a shiny surface that reflects light so we can see ourselves or other things. Well, a Mangin mirror is a special kind of mirror that is curved instead of being flat.

It's like if you took a piece of metal and made it into a bowl shape, but it's not a regular bowl because it's very, very shiny! The inside of the bowl is coated with a special material that helps reflect light really well.

The cool thing about the Mangin mirror is that it takes light that comes from all different directions and focuses it onto a single point, kind of like how a magnifying glass focuses the sun's rays onto a piece of paper to make it hot.

Scientists and astronomers use these mirrors for all sorts of things, like making telescopes that can see really far away things in space. With a Mangin mirror, they can make the telescope smaller and still be able to see just as much.

So, to sum it up, a Mangin mirror is a shiny, curved mirror that can take light from different directions and focus it into one spot, and is used by scientists to make telescopes that can see really far away things in space. Cool, huh?