The unmanned facility is equipped with a special infrared telescope, capable of detecting energy and temperature emitted by stars and galaxies, and thus the astronauts and researchers will be able to discover stars and learn many details about the history of the universe
The space agency NASA launched this morning (Monday) from its base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, an unmanned research space vehicle whose purpose is to study the early history of the universe.
The facility is equipped with a special infrared telescope, capable of detecting energy emitted from stars, planets and galaxies. The space vehicle, Boeing Delta 2, carrying a satellite worth $700 million, will stay in space for two to five years.
"The expectation is to revolutionize our understanding of the universe by looking at it from a shorter range," said Dave Gallagher, project manager at NASA.
The special space telescope, which is sensitive to temperatures, will aim for darkness and will be able to discover stars that have never "lighted up", or those that do not have enough heat to shine. The telescope will cool itself to a temperature of a degree or two above absolute zero, thus detecting the darkest and coldest stars, which have never been seen before.
This is the development of a tripartite project by NASA, called "Large Star Observatories". The project also includes the "Hubble" space telescope, which works on sensitivity to light, and the "Chandra" X-Ray device. Through these three facilities, the astronauts will be able to get the complete picture about the matter and energy in the universe.
Ann Kinney, a scientist at NASA, explained that when the three telescopes are in space, the "Chandra" will be able to detect objects at millions of degrees of heat, the "Hubble" will be able to detect objects at thousands of degrees and the new telescope, known as SIRTF (acronym for Space Infra Red Telescope Facility), will be able to detect objects whose temperature reaches hundreds of degrees only. "This way we will get a large range of information about what is there," Kinney said.
The new telescope, which will receive a more "accessible" name after proving itself for about two months in space, will also play an important role closer to Earth. Scientists know very little about a wide region of ice-covered objects orbiting the Sun, beyond the orbit of the planet Pluto. From this region, known as the "Kuiper Belt", ice balls sometimes reach the solar system and become comets, after they are heated by the sun. Now, with the telescope, it will be possible to examine the subject while observing the orbit around the earth, without the radiation from it interfering.
NASA has launched a telescope that will see billions of light years away
By Yuval Dror
Space exploration / the new telescope, which collects infrared radiation, will make it possible to see new objects and update the map of the universe
25/8/2003
The launch of the telescope, yesterday in Florida. The cost of its construction and launch is estimated at two billion dollars
Photo: Reuters
The American space agency (NASA) launched a telescope into space yesterday morning, which, unlike normal telescopes, will receive the infrared radiation sent from stars that have cooled. This capability will allow the telescope, known as SIRTF, to observe stars about 10 billion light years away from Earth. The scientists hope that this rare ability will allow them to better understand the life course of the stars, and draw a more updated map of the universe.
After repeated postponements, the telescope was launched yesterday at 08:35 am (Israel time). About an hour later, data was received that all the telescope systems were working properly. The telescope, whose construction and launch cost is estimated at about two billion dollars, is supposed to operate for about two and a half years, but the scientists hope that it will last five years. Although the telescope is equipped with a lens with a diameter of 85 cm - much smaller than the lens diameter of the "Hubble" telescope and other telescopes on Earth - it is considered the most sophisticated of its kind.
Normal telescopes are only able to see a small part of the universe, because the light we see is only a tiny part of the total energy that reaches the earth. The rest of the energy consists of radio, microwave, X-ray, gamma and infrared radiation. The various types of radiation differ from each other in the wavelength, frequency of the wave and the amount of energy they carry; The shorter the wavelength, the greater the energy and frequency, and vice versa.
The sky itself emits radiation at different wavelengths. The colder the object, the more it emits radiation of a lower frequency, which has a longer wavelength. Infrared radiation is outside our range of vision, below visible red light: its range ranges from a wavelength of one micron ("near infrared") to about 200 microns ("far infrared").
For this reason, telescopes that scan the sky in search of infrared radiation are excellent instruments for locating cool objects such as "brown dwarfs" (objects that are larger than planets, but do not have enough mass to be stars) or objects that are "hiding" behind huge clouds of dust : Scanning objects with infrared radiation makes the dust clouds "invisible". This ability is expected to result in updating the sky maps with objects that until now could not be distinguished.
"We are eagerly awaiting the SIRTF," says Dr. Shai Zucker, from the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University. "It is difficult for us to use telescopes of this type on Earth, as the atmosphere interferes with them."
The scientists who launched SIRTF weren't content with finding it extraterrestrial. Unlike the Hubble telescope, SIRTF will be about 14.5 million kilometers away from Earth. "The information that the telescope will convey to us may be very valuable. For example, stars form inside cold dust clouds that only later heat up, become more violent and form stars. Locating these dust clouds will allow scientists to better understand the processes that lead to star formation," says Zucker.
