Category: Observatories

If you think you need to install a telescope on a mountaintop, or even above the surface of the Earth, think again. A new telescope currently being installed near the South Pole has detectors more than 2 kilometres under the surface of the Antarctic ice cap. For the neutrinos it’s searching for, that much ice is the same as nothing at all.

Neutrinos are illusive particles generated by the fusion reactions in the Sun and other cosmic events. They barely interact with normally matter, passing right through like it’s complete vacuum. Only in the rarest occasions will a neutrino collide directly normal matter, releasing a torrent of subparticles and radiation.

Once completed, the IceCube observatory will consist of detectors arranged in a 1 kilometre cubic array frozen underneath the surface of the Antarctic ice cap. Construction is currently into its 3rd year, with more than 20 institutions participating. The final instrument will consist of more than 70 strings, each containing more than 60 optical detectors frozen into the ice.

When operational, IceCube will be able to detect neutrinos from the Sun, as well as some of the most catastrophic events in the Universe, such as a supernova or black hole. The neutrinos will interact with particles of ice within the array, and produce a cascade of particles that will produce a flash of light captured by the optical detectors.

The full construction is going to take another 3-4 years, but the array is already operational, and gathering scientific results.

Original Source: University of Delaware News Release

A key scientific instrument attached to the Gemini South observatory was damaged in late April when a malfunctioning heater raised its temperature to 200-degrees Celsius. It was never meant to withstand temperatures this high, and will be out of commission for several months while technicians make repairs.

The device is called Gemini Near Infrared Spectrometer (GNIRS), and it measures the spectrum of light coming from a distant object, to help astronomers understand its composition.

On the weekend of April 20th, technicians were using a system that warms up the instrument between observations, and it was left running for several days. This is standard procedure; however, an independent controller that shuts off power to the heater failed, and allowed the heater to reach 200-degrees.

Once they realized the instrument was being cooked by the heater, the technicians shut it down and allowed it to cool for a few days. They removed the instrument from the telescope, and dismantled it to access the damage.

Unfortunately, portions of GNIRS were damaged, and the CCD science detector was completely destroyed. Most of the instrument is undamaged, but it will still take several months to examine each component, clean and replace the damaged ones, and retest it for astronomical duty.

Original Source: Gemini News Release

If you want clear skies for astronomy, you need to get above the atmosphere. At the top of high mountain is good, space is even better, but that’s expensive. A new NASA infrared observatory is going to be flying as high as possible, to get above most of the atmosphere, at a fraction of the cost of a space mission. It’s called the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and the specially modified 747 aircraft made its first checkout flight last week – NASA wanted to see how it handles at low-speed and low-altitude.

In order to fit a 20,000 kg (45,000 pound) infrared observatory into the aircraft, NASA had to cut a 5 metre (16 foot) hole in the back of the plane, near the tail. It now has a door that will slide back to reveal the telescope. The plane will eventually fly at an altitude of 12 km (40,000 feet), rising above most of the atmosphere’s water vapour, and give the 2.5 metre (98.4 inch) telescope a clear view of the heavens. Another advantage is that the aircraft can be serviced and upgraded regularly, swapping in new instrumentation as technology improves. You can’t do that with a space-based observatory.

For its next tests, SOFIA will transfer to its final home at NASA’s Dryden Research Center at Edwards, California. It will then perform a series of flights until its science observations begin in 2009 or 2010.

Original Source: NASA News Release