New Planet Hunter Gets to Work

Image credit: SuperWasp
A consortium of astronomers is tomorrow (April 16th) celebrating the commissioning of the SuperWASP facility at the astronomical observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, designed to detect thousands of planets outside of our own solar system.

Only about a hundred extra-solar planets are currently known, and many questions about their formation and evolution remain unanswered due to the lack of observational data. This situation is expected to improve dramatically as SuperWASP produces scientific results.

The SuperWASP facility is now entering its operational phase. Construction of the instrument began in May 2003, and in autumn last year the first test data was obtained which showed the instrument’s performance to exceed initial expectations.

SuperWASP is the most ambitious project of its kind anywhere in the world. Its extremely wide field of view combined with its ability to measure brightness very precisely allows it to view large areas of the sky and accurately monitor the brightnesses of hundreds of thousands of stars.

If any of these have nearby Jupiter-sized planets then they may move across the face of their parent star, as viewed from the Earth. While no telescope could actually see the planet directly, its passage or transit, blocks out a small proportion of the parent star’s light i.e. we see the star get slightly fainter for a few hours. In our own solar system a similar phenomenon will occur on 8th June 2004 when Venus will transit the Sun’s disk.

One nights’ observing with SuperWASP will generate a vast amount of data, up to 60 GB – about the size of a typical modern computer hard disk (or 42000 floppy disks). This data is then processed using sophisticated software and stored in a public database within the Leicester Database and Archive Service of the University of Leicester.

The Principal Investigator for the Project, Dr Don Pollacco (Queens University Belfast), said “While the construction and initial commissioning phases of the facility have been only 9 months long, SuperWASP represents the culmination of many years work from astronomers within the WASP consortium. Data from SuperWASP will lead to exciting progress in many areas of astronomy, ranging from the discovery of planets around nearby stars to the early detection of other classes of variable objects such as supernovae in distant galaxies”.

Dr Ren? Rutten (Director of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes) said “SuperWASP is a very nice example of how clever ideas to exploit the latest technology can open new windows to explore the universe around us, and shows that important scientific programmes can be done at very modest cost.”

The history of the project over the last ten years including the exciting discovery of the Sodium Tail of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 can be found at http://www.superwasp.org/history.html and enclosed web links.

The SuperWASP facility is operated by the WASP consortium involving

astronomers from the following institutes: Queen’s University Belfast, University of Cambridge, Instituto de Astrof?sica de Canarias, Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (La Palma), University of Keele, University of Leicester, Open University and University of St Andrews.

The SuperWASP instrument has cost approximately ?400K, and was funded by major financial contributions from Queen’s University Belfast, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Open University. SuperWASP is located in the Spanish Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, Canary Islands which is operated by the Instituto de Astrof?sica de Canarias (IAC).

Pictures of the SuperWASP facility and some of its astronomical first-light images are available at http://www.superwasp.org/firstlight.html

Original Source: PPARC News Release

8.4 Metre Mirror Installed on Huge Binoculars

Image credit: UA
The University of Arizona today announced that the first 8.4-meter (27-foot) primary mirror for the world?s most powerful telescope, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), has successfully been installed in the telescope structure at Arizona?s Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO).

The 18-ton mirror made its 150-mile journey from Tucson to the top of Mount Graham near Safford, Ariz., in October 2003. Now the mirror has been installed in the telescope, and technicians are testing intricate mirror support system hardware and software in preparation for telescope “first light.” First light, or when the mirror collects its first celestial light, is expected later this year.

The deeply parabolic mirror was cast and figured at the University of Arizona?s renowned Steward Observatory Mirror Lab and is the first of two identical giant mirrors that will make up the LBT. The mirrors are much larger and lighter than conventional solid-glass mirrors used in the past. Both together are valued at $22 million.

Each LBT mirror is a “honeycomb” structure made out of borosilicate glass that was melted, molded, and spun into shape in a specially designed rotating oven. Once cast, the first mirror was polished to near perfection using the Mirror Lab’s innovative “stressed-lap” technique. The mirror surface matches the desired shape to within a millionth of an inch over its entire surface. The Mirror Lab is currently polishing the second primary mirror.

After the first mirror was moved to the telescope structure late last year, engineers spent more than two months testing and perfecting mirror installation procedures using a dummy mirror in the actual mirror “cell,” or mirror support structure. The mirror was then installed in the cell and, in precise operations that required maneuvering the mirror and cell through a hatchway between building floors with only inches to spare, LBT workers lifted the mirror onto the telescope structure. The telescope is housed in an innovative 16-story rotating enclosure.

John M. Hill, LBT Project director, said, ?This is a huge step in what has been a very long and challenging process and would not have been possible without the support of a great team. From construction of our unique telescope structure to the implementation of this massive mirror, every step has involved great minds using cutting-edge technology. The remarkable success we have had so far is a tribute to the creative efforts of our team members.?

Work on the $100 million LBT project began with construction of the telescope building in 1996 and will be completed in 2005. The project is entirely funded by the LBT Corp., an international consortium of scientific and academic institutions. When the LBT is fully operational, it will be the world?s most technologically advanced optical telescope, creating images expected to be nearly 10 times sharper than images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Peter A. Strittmatter, president of the LBT Corp., said, ?The twin mirrors of the LBT will have the light gathering capabilities of an 11.8 meter (39-foot) conventional telescope. This is an exciting time for everyone who has been involved in this pioneering effort. The LBT will provide unprecedented views of our universe, including for the first time, the ability to image planets far beyond our solar system. I believe this is the first of the next generation of extremely large telescopes and will signal the beginning of a new golden era in this type of space exploration.?

The LBT project is managed by the LBT Corp., a partnership that includes the University of Arizona; Ohio State University; the Research Corp.; the LBTB, a German consortium of astronomical research institutes; and the INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. The LBT Corp. was established in 1992 to undertake the construction and operation of the LBT.

Original Source: UA News Release

New Instruments for Fast Changing Objects

Image credit: ULTRACAM
Although there are numerous telescopes – both large and small – examining the night sky at any one time, the heavens are so vast and so densely populated with all manner of exotic objects that it is extremely easy to overlook a significant random event. Fortunately, a new generation of scientific instruments is now enabling UK astronomers to prepare for the unexpected and become leaders in so-called “Time Domain Astrophysics”.

Exciting new observations of many different, time-variable celestial objects, ranging from black hole X-ray binaries to flare stars and Saturn’s moon Titan will be presented at a Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting on Friday, 13 February (details below). The meeting will also feature presentations on several ground-breaking UK instruments which make these observations possible.

The Universe around us is constantly changing. Sometimes, the map of the heavens is rewritten by sudden, violent events such as gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and supernovae. Sometimes, a wandering near-Earth asteroid or a gravitational lensing event makes its unpredictable appearance. Most frequently, a star will undergo a modest fluctuation in optical brightness or energy output.

Observing such apparitions and variations can unlock the secrets of a wide variety of the most intriguing and important astronomical objects. Unfortunately, it has proved surprisingly difficult to undertake the type of observations that are required using conventional telescopes and their instruments to solve many outstanding puzzles.

In order to understand these types of phenomena, it is necessary to conduct long term monitoring programmes or to be able to react within minutes to chance discoveries made by other observatories or spacecraft.

“A new generation of facilities, designed and built in the UK, is poised to give the nation’s astronomers a world-leading position in what is dubbed the ‘Time Domain’,” said Professor Mike Bode of Liverpool John Moores University, co-organiser with Professor Phil Charles (Southampton University) of the Royal Astronomical Society meeting about the latest technological breakthroughs in observational astronomy.

This new generation includes the “ULTRACAM” high speed camera, which is being used on various front-rank telescopes around the world. A collaboration between Sheffield and Warwick Universities and the Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh, ULTRACAM can observe changes in brightness lasting only a few thousandths of a second. It has been used to explore the environments of objects as diverse as the atmosphere of Saturn’s smog-shrouded moon, Titan, to the last gasps of gas spiralling into black holes.

Another pioneering instrument is “Super WASP”, a novel telescope comprising effectively five wide-angle cameras. Led by astronomers from a consortium of UK universities, including Queens Belfast, Cambridge, Leicester, Open, and St Andrews, as well as the Isaac Newton Group on La Palma in the Canary Islands, the first Super WASP began operations on La Palma in November 2003.

With its very wide field of view, the telescope can image at any one time an area of sky equivalent to around 1,000 times that of the full Moon. In this way, it is able to observe hundreds of thousands of stars per night, looking for changes in brightness, and discovering new objects. In particular, Super WASP will play a key role in the search for planets in other star systems as they cross the face of their parent star and the flashes of light that may accompany the most dramatic, and enigmatic, explosions since the Big Bang – the so-called Gamma Ray Bursters. In the course of its work, Super WASP will also discover countless asteroids in our own Solar System.

The third of the new facilities is the Liverpool Telescope (LT) on La Palma, pioneering the next-generation robotic telescopes that is being built in Birkenhead by Telescope Technologies Ltd. With its 2m (6.6ft) diameter main mirror, which makes it the largest robotic telescope dedicated to research ever built, the LT started science operations in January 2004. It is owned and operated as a “space probe on the ground” by Liverpool John Moores University (JMU), and supported by funding from JMU, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the European Union, the Higher Education Funding Council and the generous benefaction of Mr Aldham Robarts.

Although only operational for just under a month, the LT has already observed a wide range of objects from comets and asteroids, through exploding stars (novae and supernovae) to the variations in light of the centres of active galaxies where it is thought that supermassive black holes may be lurking.

The RAS meeting will also be presented with a vision of the future in which a network of giant robotic telescopes like the LT would be sited around the globe. This robotic telescope network (“RoboNet”) would act as a single, fast-reacting telescope, able to observe objects anywhere on the sky at any time and to follow them 24 hours a day if necessary.

Taking advantage of developments in internet technology, the network will be automatically and intelligently controlled by software developed by the e-STAR project (a collaboration between Exeter University and JMU). e-STAR links the telescopes via “intelligent agents” directly to archives and databases, so that follow-up observations of objects that are seen to vary can automatically be undertaken without human intervention.

Plans are already being considered for a prototype RoboNet based around the LT and its (primarily educational) clones, the Faulkes Telescopes, in Hawaii and Australia. This would lead next to the establishment of a dedicated network in the southern hemisphere searching for planets around other stars. The REX (the Robotic Exo-planet discovery network) project, led by the University of St Andrews, holds out the best prospects for the detection of Earth-like planets around other stars prior to the launch of vastly more expensive space-based observatories in the next decade.

Original Source: RAS News Release

New Dark Matter Detectors

Image credit: Fermilab

Astronomers don’t know what Dark Matter is, but they can see the effect of its gravity on regular matter. One possibility is that it’s regular matter, but isn’t emitting enough light for us to see. Another idea is that Dark Matter is an exotic form of matter that’s much more massive than regular particles, but interact so weakly that they’re almost impossible to detect. Researchers with the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search II have set up a series of detectors in an old iron mine in Minnesota that’s shielded from cosmic radiation and might sense these particles.

Using detectors chilled to near absolute zero, from a vantage point half a mile below ground, physicists of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search today (November 12) announced the launch of a quest that could lead to solving two mysteries that may turn out to be one and the same: the identity of the dark matter that pervades the universe, and the existence of supersymmetric particles predicted by particle physics theory. Scientists of CDMS II, an experiment managed by the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory hope to discover WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, the leading candidates for the constituents of dark matter-which may be identical to neutralinos, undiscovered particles predicted by the theory of supersymmetry.

“There’s this arrow from particle physics and this arrow from cosmology and they seem to be pointing to the same place,” said Case Western Reserve University’s Dan Akerib, deputy project manager of CDMS II. “Detection of a neutralino would be very big for cosmology and it would also be very big for particle physics.”

The CDMS II experiment, a collaboration of scientists from 12 institutions with support from DOE’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation, uses a detector located deep underground in the historic Soudan Iron Mine in northeastern Minnesota. Experimenters seek signals of WIMPs, particles much more massive than a proton but interacting so weakly with other particles that thousands would pass through a human body each second without leaving a trace.

Remarkably, in the kind of convergence that gets physicists’ attention, the characteristics of this cosmic missing matter particle now appear to match those of the supersymmetric neutralino.

“Either that is a cosmic coincidence, or the universe is telling us something,” said Fermilab’s Dan Bauer, CDMS project manager.

By watching how galaxies spin-how gravity affects their contingent stars-astronomers have known for 70 years that the matter we see cannot constitute all the matter in the universe. If it did, galaxies would fly apart. Recent calculations indicate that ordinary matter containing atoms makes up only 4 percent of the energy-matter content of the universe. “Dark energy” makes up 73 percent, and an unknown form of dark matter makes up the last 23 percent.

“It is often said that this is the ultimate Copernican Revolution,” said David Caldwell, a physicist at the University of California at Santa Barbara and chair of the CDMS Executive Committee. “Not only are we not at the center of the universe, but we are not even made of the same stuff as most of the universe.”

Measurements of the cosmic microwave background, residual radiation left over from the Big Bang, have recently placed severe constraints on the nature and amount of dark matter. The lightweight neutrino can account for only a few percent of the missing mass. If neutrinos constituted the main component of dark matter, they would act on the cosmic microwave background of the universe in ways that the recent Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe should have observed-but did not.

Meanwhile, particle physicists have kept a lookout for particles that will extend the Standard Model, the theory of fundamental particles and forces. Supersymmetry, a theory that takes a big step toward the unification of all of the forces of nature, predicts that every matter particle has a massive supersymmetric counterpart. No one has yet seen one of these “superpartners.” Theory specifies the neutralino as the lightest neutral superpartner, and the most stable, a necessary attribute for dark matter. The neutralino’s predicted abundance and rate of interaction also make it a likely dark matter candidate, and Caldwell noted the impact that CDMS II could have.

“Discovery,” he said, “would be a great breakthrough, one of the most important of the century.”

Only occasionally would a WIMP hit the nucleus of a terrestrial atom, and the constant background “noise” from more mundane particle events-such as the common cosmic rays constantly showering the earth-would normally drown out these rare interactions. Placing the CDMS II detector beneath 740 meters of earth screens out most particle noise from cosmic rays. Chilling the detector to 50 thousandths of a degree above absolute zero reduces background thermal energy to allow detection of individual particle collisions. Fermilab’s Bauer estimates that with sufficiently low backgrounds, CDMS needs only a few interactions to make a strong claim for detection of WIMPs.

“The powerful technology we deploy allows an unambiguous identification of events in the crystals caused by any new form of matter,” said CDMS cospokesperson Bernard Sadoulet of the University of California at Berkeley.

Cospokesperson Blas Cabrera of Stanford University concurred.

“We believe we have the best apparatus in the world in terms of being able to identify WIMPs,” Cabrera said.

“This endeavor is a good example of cooperation between the DOE’s Office of High Energy Physics and the National Science Foundation in helping scientists address the origin of the dark matter in the universe,” said Raymond Orbach, Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

“CDMS II is the kind of innovative and pathbreaking research NSF is proud to support,” said Michael Turner, Assistant Director for Math and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. “If it detects a signal it may tell us what the dark matter is and give us an important clue as to how gravity fits together with the other forces. This type of experiment shows how the universe can be used as a laboratory for getting at the some of the most basic questions we can ask as well as how DOE and NSF are working together.”

While CDMS II watches for WIMPs, scientists at Fermilab’s Tevatron particle accelerator will try to create neutralinos by smashing protons and antiprotons together.

“CDMS can tell us the mass and interaction rate of the WIMP,” said collaborator Roger Dixon of Fermilab. “But it will take an accelerator to tell us whether it’s a neutralino.”

CDMS II collaborators include Brown University, Case Western Reserve University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Accelerator Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Princeton University, Santa Clara University, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Colorado at Denver, University of Minnesota.

Funding for the CDMS II experiment comes from the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Astronomy and Physics Division of the National Science Foundation.

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by Universities Research Association, Inc.

Original Source: Fermilab News Release

Construction on Alma Radio Telescope Begins

Image credit: ESO

Workers in Chile broke ground today in the construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) – a giant radio telescope made up of 64 high-precision radio antennas. ALMA is scheduled to be completed in 2012, but radio astronomers will be able to start using it in 2007, when some of the antennas have been completed. Using interferometry, the radio signals from the individual 12-metre dishes will be combined to act like a single radio telescope 14 kilometres across. Needless to say, it will help astronomers push much deeper into the cosmos when viewing the radio spectrum.

Scientists and dignitaries from Europe, North America and Chile are breaking ground today (Thursday, November 6, 2003) on what will be the world’s largest, most sensitive radio telescope operating at millimeter wavelengths.

ALMA – the “Atacama Large Millimeter Array” – will be a single instrument composed of 64 high-precision antennas located in the II Region of Chile, in the District of San Pedro de Atacama, at the Chajnantor altiplano, 5,000 metres above sea level. ALMA’s primary function will be to observe and image with unprecedented clarity the enigmatic cold regions of the Universe, which are optically dark, yet shine brightly in the millimetre portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is an international astronomy facility. ALMA is an equal partnership between Europe and North America, in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, and is funded in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and on behalf of Europe by ESO.

“ALMA will be a giant leap forward for our studies of this relatively little explored spectral window towards the Universe”, said Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, Director General of ESO. “With ESO leading the European part of this ambitious and forward-looking project, the impact of ALMA will be felt in wide circles on our continent. Together with our partners in North America and Chile, we are all looking forward to the truly outstanding opportunities that will be offered by ALMA, also to young scientists and engineers”.

“The U.S. National Science Foundation joins today with our North American partner, Canada, and with the European Southern Observatory, Spain, and Chile to prepare for a spectacular new instrument,” stated Dr. Rita Colwell, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation. “ALMA will expand our vision of the Universe with “eyes” that pierce the shrouded mantles of space through which light cannot penetrate.”

On the occasion of this groundbreaking, the ALMA logo was unveiled.

Science with ALMA
ALMA will capture millimetre and sub-millimetre radiation from space and produce images and spectra of celestial objects as they appear at these wavelengths. This particular portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is less energetic than visible and infrared light, yet more energetic than most radio waves, holds the key to understanding a great variety of fundamental processes, e.g., planet and star formation and the formation and evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the early Universe. The possibility to detect emission from organic and other molecules in space is of particularly high interest.

The millimetre and sub-millimetre radiation that ALMA will study is able to penetrate the vast clouds of dust and gas that populate interstellar (and intergalactic) space, revealing previously hidden details about astronomical objects. This radiation, however, is blocked by atmospheric moisture (water molecules) in the Earth’s atmosphere. To conduct research with ALMA in this critical portion of the spectrum, astronomers thus need an exceptional observation site that is very dry, and at a very high altitude where the atmosphere above is thinner. Extensive tests showed that the sky above the high-altitude Chajnantor plain in the Atacama Desert has the unsurpassed clarity and stability needed to perform efficient observations with ALMA.

ALMA operation
ALMA will be the highest-altitude, full-time ground-based observatory in the world, at some 250 metres higher than the peak of Mont Blanc, Europe’s tallest mountain.

Work at this altitude is difficult. To help ensure the safety of the scientists and engineers at ALMA, operations will be conducted from the Operations Support Facility (ALMA OSF), a compound located at a more comfortable altitude of 2,900 metres, between the cities of Toconao and San Pedro de Atacama.

Phase 1 of the ALMA Project, which included the design and development, was completed in 2002. The beginning of Phase 2 happened on February 25, 2003, when the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) signed a historic agreement to construct and operate ALMA, cf. ESO PR 04/03.

Construction will continue until 2012; however, initial scientific observations are planned already from 2007, with a partial array of the first antennas. ALMA’s operation will progressively increase until 2012 with the installation of the remaining antennas. The entire project will cost approximately 600 million Euros.

Earlier this year, the ALMA Board selected Professor Massimo Tarenghi, formerly manager of ESO’s VLT Project, to become ALMA Director. He is confident that he and his team will succeed: “We may have a lot of hard work in front of us”, he said, “but all of us in the team are excited about this unique project. We are ready to work for the international astronomical community and to provide them in due time with an outstanding instrument allowing trailblazing research projects in many different fields of modern astrophysics”.

How ALMA will work
ALMA will be composed of 64 high-precision antennas, each 12 metres in diameter. The ALMA antennas can be repositioned, allowing the telescope to function much like the zoom lens on a camera. At its largest, ALMA will be 14 kilometers across. This will allow the telescope to observe fine-scale details of astronomical objects. At its smallest configuration, approximately 150 meters across, ALMA will be able to study the large-scale structures of these same objects.

ALMA will function as an interferometer (according to the same basic principle as the VLT Interferometer (VLTI) at Paranal). This means that it will combine the signals from all its antennas (one pair of antennas at a time) to simulate a telescope the size of the distance between the antennas.

With 64 antennas, ALMA will generate 2016 individual antenna pairs (“baselines”) during the observations. To handle this enormous amount of data, ALMA will rely on a very powerful, specialized computer (a “correlator”), which will perform 16,000 million million (1.6 x 1016) operations per second.

Currently, two prototype ALMA antennas are undergoing rigorous testing at the NRAO’s Very Large Array site, near Socorro, New Mexico, USA.

International collaboration
For this ambitious project, ALMA has become a joint effort among many nations and scientific institutions. In Europe, ESO leads on behalf of its ten member countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) and Spain. Japan may join in 2004, bringing enhancements to the project. Given the participation of North America, this will be the first truly global project of ground-based astronomy, an essential development in view of the increasing technological sophistication and the high costs of front-line astronomy installations.

The first submillimeter telescope in the southern hemisphere was the 15-m Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) which was installed at the ESO La Silla Observatory in 1987. It has since been used extensively by astronomers, mostly from ESO’s member states. SEST has now been decommissioned and a new submillimetre telescope, APEX, is about to commence operations at Chajnantor. APEX, which is a joint project between ESO, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn (Germany), and the Onsala Space Observatory (Sweden), is an antenna comparable to the ALMA antennas.

Original Source: ESO News Release

Giant Mirror Arrives at New Observatory

Image credit: UA

The construction of the world’s most powerful optical telescope took a significant step forward this week when the first of its huge mirrors was delivered. The Mount Graham International Observatory’s Large Binocular Telescope will eventually have twin 8.4 metre mirrors linked together, giving it an effective size of 11.8 metres. But the observatory will be able to view extremely faint objects as if it was 22.8 metres across – that’s 10 times the resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope. The observatory will be completed in 2005.

The world?s most powerful optical telescope, which will allow astronomers to see planets around nearby stars in our galaxy, took a giant step closer to completion late last week when the first of its huge 27-foot diameter mirrors inched up a tortuous mountain road to its new home at Arizona?s Mount Graham International Observatory.

The 18-ton borosilicate “honeycomb” mirror was escorted up the mountain by a team of scientists, engineers, police, and heavy-haul specialists to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) facility. The mirror and its all-steel transport box, which together weighed 55 tons, were transported over 122 miles of Interstate and state highway, then up the narrow hairpin turns of the 29-mile Swift Trail to the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) high above Safford, Ariz.

The journey to 10,480-foot-high Emerald Peak was a two-stage, multi-day affair that required five months of intense planning and preparation. This included a full-scale trial run with a dummy mirror in September.

“Everyone is aware that there?s real glass in there this time,” said J.T. Williams as the huge, yellow 48-wheeled transport rig rolled off pavement and onto the gravel road leading to the observatory. Williams, telescope assembly supervisor, walked every inch of the mountain road to inspect the surface and measure the turns during the transport operation.

Precision road grading by MGIO and Arizona Department of Transportation crews smoothed the worst of the washboard stretches of gravel, and haulers soon discovered that the near-vertical mirror load traveled best with a slight increase in speed over the washboard sections.

The mirror?s journey to Mount Graham began on Thursday, Oct. 23, when the Mirror Lab team and workers from Precision Heavy Haul, Inc. (PHH) loaded the mirror transport box and its precious cargo at UA?s Mirror Lab, which is located in the campus football stadium. The mirror-carrying convoy pulled out of the lab hours before dawn on Friday, accompanied by a 25-vehicle police escort that was organized by Mike Thomas of the UA Police Department. The police car-and-motorcycle escort formed a rolling blockade as the mirror rolled down I-10 and State Highway 191. They provided both traffic and mirror safety as the convoy averaged 45 mph to the MGIO base camp at the base of the Pinaleno Mountains.

Last Monday, Oct. 27, the team at base camp transferred the mirror to PHH?s Goldhofer trailer for the three-day, 29-mile journey to the telescope?s home on Emerald Peak. This 8,000-foot climb was made at about one mile per hour.

The Goldhofer trailer rests on six sets of eight wheels. Each wheel set has an independent hydraulic system that allowed the trailer to be accurately leveled, keeping the mirror upright as it negotiated the road?s banked turns.

“This is probably the most challenging job we?ve done,” said PHH President Mike Poppe, who expertly drove the Goldhofer to the telescope. PHH Vice President Jim Mussmann rode on the Goldhofer and monitored hydraulics, constantly adjusting the trailer to maintain the mirror’s center of gravity.

PHH, which is based in Phoenix, hauled the mirror cell (the structure that holds the mirror and its support system) to the LBT a week earlier and transported many other telescope parts to Mount Graham in 2002.

“Arizona was very fortunate to partner with Precision Heavy Haul, a group that wanted to work with the university as a team of one,” said LBT Associate Director Jim Slagle. “The alliance of Arizona scientists and engineers working alongside Precision Heavy Haul on the proper way to bring these pieces up the mountain turned out to be a successful operation.”

Although the mirror was transported to the mountain last week, its journey began back in 1997 when it was spun cast in the Mirror?s Lab?s giant rotating furnace. The Mirror Lab team has been developing new mirror technologies for the past two decades under the direction of UA Regents? Professor J. Roger Angel.

After it was cast, the mirror was polished using the lab?s innovative stressed-lap technique. The face of the deeply parabolic mirror (f/1.14) mirror is precise within a millionth of an inch over its entire surface.

The Mirror Lab is about to begin polishing the LBT?s second 8.4-meter primary mirror.

Work on the LBT began with construction of the telescope building in 1996 and is scheduled to be completed in 2005 when both mirrors are installed at the $100 million facility. The two mirrors together are valued at $22 million. The telescope building is a 16-story structure, the top ten floors of which rotate.

The LBT will have twin 8.4-meter mirrors on a single telescope mount, giving it the light-collecting area of an 11.8-meter (39-foot-diameter) telescope. But what really excites astronomers is that the LBT will make images of even faint objects as sharp as a 22.8-meter (75-foot) telescope would. This is nearly ten times sharper than the images from the Hubble Space Telescope. When the LBT is fully operational, it will be the world?s most powerful optical telescope, capable of imaging planets beyond our solar system. It will allow astronomers to peer deeper into the universe than ever before.

Astronomers won?t have to wait to 2005, however, to begin using the telescope. It will see first light with its first mirror next summer.

The telescope is a compact, stiff and innovative design produced by UA engineer Warren Davison in collaboration with Roger Angel and engineers in Italy. The major mechanical parts for the LBT were fabricated, pre-assembled and tested at the Ansaldo-Camozzi steel works in Milan, one of Italy?s oldest steel manufacturers. Then the telescope was disassembled and shipped by freighter to Houston, Texas, and overland to Safford, Ariz. The Italian-made mirror cell continued to the Mirror Lab, where Integration Team Leader Steve Warner and his team integrated the mirror support system into the cell for final optical tests before PHH hauled the mirror cell to the mountain two weeks ago.

Astronomers were delighted when the mirror reached its home last week.

“I?m both excited and exhausted simultaneously,” said LBT Project Director John M. Hill, who couldn?t be pried away from the mirror after it arrived at the 10,000-foot-high telescope enclosure on Thursday, Oct. 30. “We?ve been working on this mirror for a long time, and it?s great to see it ready to install in the telescope.”

LBT Associate Director Jim Slagle echoed Hill?s enthusiasm. “I?m terrifically excited,” he said. “Today we?re going to have an observatory. For the first time, we have a mirror. We have a mirror cell. And we?re going to have a telescope.”

Steward?s Associate Director Buddy Powell added, “This is a significant milestone in the process to make available the most powerful optical telescope in the world. It would not have been possible without the support of people in Graham County (Arizona), the State of Arizona, Ohio, Italy, and Germany. It is a perfect example of what people from wide and diverse backgrounds can accomplish by working together. We are very proud of their accomplishment.”

Steward Observatory Director Peter Strittmatter said, “Getting the first LBT 8.4-meter mirror to the observatory on Mount Graham is a major accomplishment, and a huge relief. The LBT team and those involved in the transportation are to be congratulated on their achievement. Arizonan?s can take enormous pride in this project.”

The University of Arizona, which also represents Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University on the project, holds a quarter partnership in the LBT. The Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, representing observatories in Florence, Bologna, Rome, Padua, Milan and elsewhere in Italy, is also quarter partner in the project. The Ohio State University and the Research Corp. each holds a one-eighth share, with Research Corp. providing participation for the University of Notre Dame, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Virginia. Germany is the fourth quarter partner in LBT, with contributing science institutions in Heidelberg, Potsdam, Munich, and Bonn.

Original Source: UA News Release

Palomar Isn’t at Risk From Fire Yet

Image credit: Caltech

The terrible wild fires in Southern California have destroyed thousands of homes, killed more than 16 people and are still out of control in many areas. The Palomar observatory is in the area, but its operators feel that the 200-inch telescope isn’t at risk. The observatory was built with two layers of concrete and steel, dead trees and underbrush have been removed from a significant area, and it boasts a large water tank and volunteer fire fighting team. Smoke and ash have put a temporary halt to observations, though.

The tragic fires that continue to affect San Diego County remind us all just how fragile life and property can be. Currently fires are slowly approaching the area of Palomar Mountain, home to the California Institute of Technology’s historic Palomar Observatory.

Smoke and ash from the fires have put a temporary end to the Observatory’s nightly observations, but the Observatory itself is not threatened. In fact the dome of the 200-inch telescope is a safe place for and has been selected as an evacuation point for the Palomar Mountain Community .

“The builders of Palomar realized the potential fire danger and designed the 200-inch Hale Telescope to survive a fire. It is constructed with two layers of concrete and steel. Also, in recent months our maintenance staff along with foresters have removed dead and dying trees from the Observatory grounds. We are prepared for the worst,” says Palomar Observatory’s superintendent, Bob Thicksten. It doesn’t hurt that the Observatory has its own million gallon water tank, an array of fire hydrants and staff members who double as volunteer firefighters as well. Thicksten has worked tirelessly to maintain a working relationship with the local fire department, the United States Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry (CDF), which has its own fire station less than half a mile from the Observatory’s main gate.

The Palomar Observatory will issue further press statements as necessary.

Original Source: Palomar Observatory

Cosmic Ray Detector Completed

Image credit: Fermilab

The 100th detector for the Pierre Auger Observatory was recently completed, making the array the world’s largest cosmic ray detector. It consists of surface detectors spread out over 181 square kilometers of land in Argentina. Once it’s working, the detector should be able to capture some of the most energetic cosmic ray particles – they only strike a 2.5 square kilometer area once a year. The mystery with these high-energy particles is that astronomers have no idea what in the Universe could create them. The long term plans for the observatory is to eventually have 1,600 detectors by 2005.

With the completion of its hundredth surface detector, the Pierre Auger Observatory, under construction in Argentina, this week became the largest cosmic-ray air shower array in the world. Managed by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Pierre Auger project so far encompasses a 70-square-mile array of detectors that are tracking the most violent-and perhaps most puzzling- processes in the entire universe.

Cosmic rays are extraterrestrial particles-usually protons or heavier ions-that hit the Earth’s atmosphere and create cascades of secondary particles. While cosmic rays approach the earth at a range of energies, scientists long believed that their energy could not exceed 1020 electron volts, some 100 million times the proton energy achievable in Fermilab’s Tevatron, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. But recent experiments in Japan and Utah have detected a few such ultrahigh energy cosmic rays, raising questions about what extraordinary events in the universe could have produced them.

“How does nature create the conditions to accelerate a tiny particle to such an energy?” asked Alan Watson, physics professor at the University of Leeds, UK, and spokesperson for the Pierre Auger collaboration of 250 scientists from 14 countries. “Tracking these ultrahigh-energy particles back to their sources will answer that question.”

Scientific theory can account for the sources of low- and medium-energy cosmic rays, but the origin of these rare high-energy cosmic rays remains a mystery. To identify the cosmic mechanisms that produce microscopic particles at macroscopic energy, the Pierre Auger collaboration is installing an array that will ultimately comprise 1,600 surface detectors in an area of the Argentine Pampa Amarilla the size of Rhode Island, near the town of Malarg?e, about 600 miles west of Buenos Aires. The first 100 detectors are already surveying the southern sky.

“These highest-energy cosmic rays are messengers from the extreme universe,” said Nobel Prize winner Jim Cronin, of the University of Chicago, who conceived the Auger experiment together with Watson. “They represent a great opportunity for discoveries.”

The highest-energy cosmic rays are extremely rare, hitting the Earth’s atmosphere about once per year per square mile. When complete in 2005, the Pierre Auger observatory will cover approximately 1,200 square miles (3,000 square kilometers), allowing scientists to catch many of these events.

“Our experiment will pick up where the AGASA experiment has left off,” said project manager Paul Mantsch, Fermilab, referring to the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) experiment in Japan. “At highest energies, the astonishing results from the two largest cosmic-ray experiments appear to be in conflict. AGASA sees more events than the HiRes experiment in Utah, but the statistics of both experiments are limited.”

The Pierre Auger project, named after the pioneering French physicist who first observed extended air showers in 1938, combines the detection methods used in the Japanese and Utah experiments. Surface detectors are spaced one mile apart. Each surface unit consists of a 4-foot-high cylindrical tank filled with 3,000 gallons of pure water, a solar panel, and an antenna for wireless transmission of data. Sensors register the invisible particle avalanches, triggered at an altitude of six to twelve miles just microseconds earlier, as they reach the ground. The particle showers strike several tanks almost simultaneously.

In addition to the tanks, the new observatory will feature 24 HiRes-type fluorescence telescopes that can pick up the faint ultraviolet glow emitted by air showers in mid-air. The fluorescence telescopes, which can only be operated during dark, moonless nights, are sensitive enough to pick up the light emitted by a 4-watt lamp traveling six miles away at almost the speed of light.

“It is a really beautiful thing that we have a hybrid system,” said Watson. “We can look at air showers in two modes. We can measure their energy in two independent ways.”

The Pierre Auger collaboration is in the process of preparing a proposal for a second site of its observatory, to be located in the United States. Featuring the same design as the Argentinean site, the second detector array would scan the northern sky for the sources of the most powerful cosmic rays.

Funding for the $55 million Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina has come from 14 member nations. The U.S. contributes 20 percent of the total cost, with support provided by the Office of Science of the Department of Energy and by the National Science Foundation. A list of all participating institutions is available at http://auger.cnrs.fr/collaboration.html

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated by Universities Research Association, Inc.

Original Source: Fermilab News Release

30-Metre Telescope in the Works

Image credit: Caltech

The possibility of a 30-metre telescope moved closer to reality this week when the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation awarded $17.5 million to fund the detailed design study. Planned for completion in 2012, the Thirty-Metre Telescope will have nine times the light-gathering power of the 10-metre Keck observatory; the largest in the world. With its adaptive optics capacity, it should be able to produce images which are 12 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. The building site hasn?t been chosen yet, but it will probably be in Mexico, Hawaii or Chile.

The dream of a giant optical telescope to improve our understanding of the universe and its origin has moved a step closer to reality today. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation awarded $17.5 million to fund a detailed design study of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT). This new grant allows the California Institute of Technology and its partner, the University of California, to proceed with formulating detailed construction plans for the telescope.

An earlier, more modest, study completed in 2002 resulted in a roughed-out concept for a 30-meter-diameter optical and infrared telescope, complete with adaptive optics, which would result in images more than 12 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope. The TMT– formerly known as the California Extremely Large Telescope–will have nine times the light-gathering ability of one of the 10-meter Keck Telescopes, which are currently the largest in the world.

“Caltech and the University of California will work in close and constant collaboration to achieve the goals of the design effort,” states Richard Ellis, director of optical observatories at Caltech. “We’ve had promising discussions with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, both of whom are considering joining us as major collaborators. Constructing and operating a telescope of this size will be a huge undertaking requiring a large collaborative effort.”

According to Ellis, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s early funding will provide crucial momentum to carry the project to fruition. “The major goals of the design phase will include an extensive review and optimization of the telescope design, addressing areas of risk, for example by early testing of key components, and staffing a project office in Pasadena.”

With such a telescope, astrophysicists will be able to study the earliest galaxies and the details of their formation as well as to pinpoint the processes which lead to young planetary systems around nearby stars.

“The key new capabilities promised by the Thirty Meter Telescope will include unprecedented angular resolution, necessary to resolve detail in early galaxies and forming planetary systems, and of course the huge collecting area for studying the faintest sources, which are often the most important to understand, but are beyond the reach of current facilities.”” adds Chuck Steidel, professor of astronomy, who chaired a science committee charged with making the case for the proposed facility.

Following the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation-funded design study, the final phase of the project, not yet funded, will be construction of the observatory at a yet undetermined site in Hawaii, Chile, or Mexico. The end of this phase would mark the beginning of regular astronomical observations, perhaps by 2012.

Ellis says TMT is a natural project for Caltech to undertake, given its decades of experience in constructing, operating, and conducting science with the world’s largest telescopes. Before Caltech and the University of California’s jointly-operated Keck Observatory went on-line in the 1990s, Caltech’s 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory was among the largest optical instruments in the world. Today, 54 years after its first light, the Hale Telescope is still in continuous use as a major research instrument.

“This project takes Caltech’s success in ground-based astronomy to the next level of ambition,” Ellis says. “The TMT will also build logically on the successful demonstration of the segmented primary mirrors of the Keck telescopes, a major innovation at the time but now recognized as the only route to making a primary mirror of this size.”

Caltech is currently in the process of hiring a project manager to lead the technical effort for the TMT.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation was created in November 2000 with a multibillion-dollar contribution from its founders. The mission of the Foundation is to seek and develop outcome-based projects that will improve the quality of life for future generations. The majority of the Foundation’s grant making concerns large-scale initiatives in four general program areas: the environment, higher education, science, and San Francisco Bay Area projects.

Original Source: Caltech News Release

Keck Uses Adaptive Optics for the First Time

Image credit:: Keck

The 10-metre Keck II observatory took an important step forward recently when it began observations with its new adaptive optics system. The system uses a laser to create a fake star about 90 kilometres up in the sky – a computer can then use this to calculate how to remove the effect of atmospheric disturbances. Adaptive optics have been used on smaller telescopes, but this is the first time it’s been employed on a telescope as large as the mighty Keck II; it took nine years to adapt the observatory.

A major milestone in astronomical history took place recently at the W.M. Keck Observatory when scientists, for the first time, used a laser to create an artificial guide star on the Keck II 10-meter telescope to correct the blurring of a star with adaptive optics (AO). Laser guide stars have been used on smaller telescopes, but this is their first successful use on the current generation of the world’s largest telescopes. The resulting image (Figure 1), captured by the NIRC2 infrared camera, was the first demonstration of a laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system on a large telescope. When complete, the LGS AO system will mark a new era of astronomy in which astronomers will be able to see virtually any object in the sky with the clarity of adaptive optics.

“This is one of the most gratifying moments in all my years at Keck,” remarked Dr. Frederic Chaffee, director of the W.M. Keck Observatory the evening the observations were made. “Like any positive first light result, there is much to be done before the system can be considered operational. But also like any positive first light result, it shows that it can be done, and gives us great optimism that our goals are not impossible dreams, but are instead attainable realities.”

Adaptive optics is a technique that has revolutionized ground-based astronomy through its ability to remove the blurring of starlight caused by the earth?s atmosphere. Its requirement of a relatively bright “guide star” in the same field of view as the scientific object of study has generally limited the use of AO to about one percent of the objects in the sky.

To overcome this restriction, in 1994 the W.M. Keck Observatory began working with Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) to develop an artificial guide star system. By using a laser to create a ?virtual star,? astronomers can study any object in the vicinity of much fainter (up to 19th magnitude) objects with adaptive optics and reduce its dependence on bright, naturally occurring guide stars. Doing so will increase sky coverage for the Keck adaptive optics system from an estimated one percent of all objects in the sky, to more than 80 percent.

“This new capability of using a laser guide star with a large telescope has invited astronomers to start exploring the night sky in a much more comprehensive manner,” said Adam Contos, optics engineer at the W.M. Keck Observatory. “In the future, I would expect most major observatories to be installing similar systems to take advantage of this incredible enhancement to their AO capabilities.”

In January 2001, after more than seven years in development, the Keck and LLNL teams celebrated the completion of the Keck laser guide star system. The artificial star results when light from a 15-watt dye laser causes a naturally occurring layer of sodium atoms to glow about 90 km (56 miles) above the earth’s surface. It would take another two years of sophisticated research and design before the laser system could be integrated into the Keck II adaptive optics system.

In the early morning hours of September 20th, all subsystems finally came together to reveal the unique capability of the Keck LGS AO system and its potential to resolve extremely faint objects. The system locked on a 15th magnitude star, a member of a well-known T Tauri binary called HK Tau and revealed details of the circumstellar disk of the companion star. It was the first time an adaptive optics system on a very large telescope had ever used an artificial guide star to resolve a faint object.

A key challenge the LGS AO team faced was how successful the efforts would be to integrate and achieve good performance measurements for each required sub-system. Concerns about the power of the laser and its spot quality, operation of the laser traffic control system, the ability of the new sensors to lock on fainter guide stars, and being able to optimize the image quality through an accurate understanding of the aberrations that could not be measured by using the laser guide star, were all factored into the evening’s observing.

“First light was a superb team effort,” said Dr. Peter Wizinowich, team leader for the adaptive optics team at W.M. Keck Observatory. “It was very satisfying to have each of the many subsystems perform so well on our first attempt. To quote Virgil, ‘Audentes Fortuna Juvat,’ fortune favors the bold.”

The quality of the LGS AO first light images was extremely high. While locked on a 14th magnitude star, the Keck LGS AO system recorded “Strehl ratios” of 36 percent (at 2.1 micron wavelength, 30-second exposure time, Figure 3), compared to four percent for uncorrected images. Strehl ratios measure the degree to which an optical system approaches “diffraction-limited” perfection, or the theoretical performance limit, of the telescope.

Another performance metric, the “full width at half maximum” (FWHM), for this 14th magnitude star was 50 milli-arcseconds, compared to 183 milli-arcseconds for the uncorrected image. FWHM measurements help astronomers determine the actual edges of an object, where the detection may be imprecise or difficult to determine. The measurement of 50 milli-arcseconds is about equivalent to being able to distinguish a pair of car headlights in New York while standing in Los Angeles.

Throughout the evening, the laser guide star held steady and bright, shining at an approximate magnitude of 9.5, about 25 times fainter than what the human eye can see, but ideal for the Keck adaptive optics system to measure and correct for atmospheric distortions.

Additional work is underway before the Keck LGS AO system can be considered fully operational. The Keck LGS AO system will be available for limited shared risk science next year, with full deployment to the Keck user community in 2005.

“Even with just this first test, astronomers are already clamoring to use the laser guide star system to study distant galaxies with an unprecedented resolution and power,” said Dr. David Le Mignant, adaptive optics instrument scientist at the W.M. Keck Observatory, California Association for Research in Astronomy. “By next year, adaptive optics will be used to study the rich formation history of early galaxies.”

The importance of this breakthrough to worldwide astronomy was summed up by Dr. Matt Mountain, the director of the Gemini Observatory, which operates twin 8-meter telescopes, one on Mauna Kea and one on Cerro Pachon in Chile: “This is a critical milestone for all ground-based astronomy, not just for our current generation of eight to 10-meter class telescopes, but also for our dreams of 30-meter telescopes.”

Team members responsible for the Keck LGS AO system are Antonin Bouchez, Jason Chin, Adam Contos, Scott Hartman, Erik Johansson, Robert Lafon, David Le Mignant, Chris Neyman, Paul Stomski, Doug Summers, Marcos van Dam, and Peter Wizinowich, all from the W.M. Keck Observatory, California Association for Research in Astronomy. The team gave special thanks to their collaborators at LLNL: Dee Pennington, Curtis Brown and Pam Danforth.

The laser guide star adaptive optics system was funded by the W.M. Keck Foundation.

The W.M. Keck Observatory is operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology.

Original Source: Keck News Release