A giant camera called SCUBA-2 is being transported from the Science and Technology Facility Council’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on top of a 14,000 foot mountain in Hawaii. It is expected to play a part in many cosmic discoveries over the coming years.
SCUBA-2 doesn’t detect visible light; instead it detects the submillimetre radiation linked to the heat emitted by cold dust in space. This dust is essential to understanding the formation of galaxies, stars and planets.
Commenting on SCUBA-2, Dr Wayne Holland, project leader at the UK AT, said: "Submillimetre astronomy is a relatively new science and one where the UK has led the world over the past two decades. Our latest camera is the most powerful yet: SCUBA-2 on the JCMT should detect the equivalent of the heat from a candle on the surface of the Moon."
SCUBA-2 1000 times faster
To make the camera this sensitive, the detectors in the camera are cooled to within a tenth of a degree of absolute zero, which represents a huge technical challenge.
The camera, which contains over 10,000 pixels, is far more detailed than its nearest equivalent. “The closest rival camera has only a few hundred pixels. SCUBA-2 will survey the sky 1000 times faster than any other instrument out there, with the exciting prospect of producing the first detailed map of the sky - a true atlas of the cold universe," commented Professor Ian Robson, Director of the UK ATC.
Explore space and time with Stephen Hawking
Professor Stephen Hawking’s quest for a ‘Theory of Everything’ has brought physics – and the general reading public – to places they had never been before. But what has your experience of the book been like? Unputdownable or unreadable? Does it deserve its status as one of the world’s ‘unread bestsellers"? Let us know your thoughts on supernovae, black holes and dark matter …you might even win something.
You’ve read it. Now review it.
Date Published: February 25, 2008
More by this source
|
Print
|
Send to a friend
|
Rate & Comment
|
Keep up to date
If you found this item fun or informative, please let others know. Simply send to a friend or recommend it to even more people - on any of the following sites:
Latest Science News | reddit | digg.com | del.icio.us | rollyo | stumbleupon
More on telescope...
Giant lunar telescopes
Plan afoot to construct colossal mirrors on the Moon.
Glast telescope will observe the most violent events in the universe
A space telescope built to observe the most violent events in the universe has been given the all-clear to launch from Cape Canaveral air force station in Florida today.
Sky-high tech Nasa engineers try to reboot Hubble telescope
Nasa engineers will try today to reboot the $2bn (£1.1bn) Hubble Space Telescope, which has been out of commission for a fortnight after a computer failure. The monitoring staff will attempt to send commands to the craft, orbiting 300 miles above the Earth, to switch on a back-up computer which has not been activated since the telescope was launched more than 18 years ago.
