A unequaled telescope is set to set up from New Zealand in April 2022 , plan to survey the gravitative lensing that hap when astronomic clusters collide . The instrument , calledSuperBIT , will be suspended by a stadium - sized He balloon in Earth ’s stratosphere .
A squad from the University of Toronto , Princeton University , and Durham University in England , in co-occurrence with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency , design SuperBIT to be a illustrative telescope , meant to show off a new applied science ( similar to theIngenuity eggbeater ’s purpose on Mars ) . SuperBIT has a half - meter - wide mirror and will be lifted 25 mile into the sky by a balloon with a volume of 532,000 cubic meters . The telescope is budgeted to be $ 5 million to both make and operate , a steal compared to a space - base observatory .
The team ’s astronomers and astrophysicists hope that SuperBIT will show the public-service corporation of a meretricious , more frequently launch telescopic arrangement . By float so high up above well-nigh all of Earth ’s standard atmosphere , the scope will also avoid the stuff and nonsense that so often screws up reflection for land - free-base telescopes , from overcast nights to wildfire smogginess . A introduction on SuperBIT is coiffe to be apply tomorrow at the Royal Astronomical Society ’s yearly National Astronomy Meeting .
SuperBIT in a 2016 test flight over Texas.Image: Richard Massey / Durham University
“ [ The James Webb Space Telescope ] and almost all succeeding planned missions that are high - resolving imagers are500 nanometers or redder , which entrust Hubble as the only high - resolution imager that has blue and near - UV sensitiveness , ” said Mohamed Shaaban , an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto and a member of the SuperBIT team . “ Not only is Hubble having all these technical school panic , Hubble is old than I am . It ’s an age technical school , it wo n’t last incessantly . ”
The balloon is asuper - pressure balloon , a development by NASA that will allow the telescope to stair airborne for many workweek and even month . That ’s a needed departure from quondam balloon organization , like one herald as a plot - record changer in 2014 that cease upspringing a leak after two daylight , take the da Gamma light beam scope it was carrying down with it . Up in the air , SuperBIT will circumnavigate the globe , imaging the sky at night and charging up by way of solar panels during the day . Shaaban said that the telescope will deploy hard drives of data by parachute when drifting over domain , in addition to the regular beaming of data to the scientist on the ground . This , he said , will ensure that as much scientific discipline as potential is recovered from the scope , even if it eventually goes down in water .
SuperBIT is the precursor to GigaBIT , a design telescope with an optical system three times the size of it of SuperBIT ’s . consort to the SuperBITwebsite , GigaBIT is expect to launch its first test escape in September 2022 . Also in the 2022 launch windowpane is theEuropean Space Agency ’s Euclid telescope , which like SuperBIT will be scouring quad for signs of benighted topic and dark energy .
The SuperBIT telescope being prepared at the Timmins Stratospheric Balloon Base in Canada in 2019.Image: Steven Benton, Princeton University
“ Euclid is going to be take care everywhere and a small bit shallow ; SuperBIT and GigaBIT , from the science perspective , their niche is look at something specific and looking abstruse , ” Shaaban said . “ We ’re cash in one’s chips to be able to see thing that are dimmer and further out than Euclid by design . ”
SuperBIT will observe colliding clusters of stars to measure property of dark matter . The telescope does this by measuringgravitational lensing , the way that a large flock like a galaxy cluster bends lightly around itself . Because dark matter is invisible except through its gravity , gravitative lensing is a rare mean value of contemplate its nature . Seeing where dark matter is concentrate in extragalactic nebula bunch before and after those clusters collide will offer some penetration as to if and how dour matter interacts with itself .
“ Cavemen could smash rock candy together , to see what they ’re made of , ” said Richard Massey , a physicist at Durham University and also a member of the SuperBIT squad , in a Royal Astronomical Societyrelease . “ SuperBIT is looking for the crunch of dark matter . It ’s the same experimentation , you just need a quad telescope to see it . ”
An optical and ultraviolet composite image of the Pillars of Creation imaged by SuperBIT.Image: SuperBIT team, from Romualdez et al. (2018) SPIE 10702
First , the scope needs to get off the ground and then stick aloft . If both those things happen , we could get a fresh perspective on the cosmos .
More : NASA ’s Most Ambitious Scientific Balloon Collapsed After Two Days Aloft
AstronomyInfrared telescopesSpacecraftSpaceflight
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