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Caltech Submillimeter Observatory
The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) was a 10.4-meter (34 ft) diameter submillimeter wavelength telescope situated alongside the 15-meter (49 ft) James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at Mauna Kea Observatories. It was engaged in submillimeter astronomy, of the terahertz radiation band. The telescope closed on September 18, 2015. As of April 2019, the telescope is set to be dismantled and its site remediated in the near future as part of the Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan. History In 1973 Robert Leighton proposed to the NSF to build four 10.4 meter diameter parabolic dish radio antennas. Three of these Leighton antennas were to be used as a mm-wave interferometer to be sited at OVRO, and the fourth was to be used as a single submillimeter telescope at a high mountain site. The proposal was approved (AST 73-04908), but the NSF insisted that the mm-wave array had to be completed before work on the submillimeter telescope could be started, which delayed ...
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California Institute Of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasionally referred to as "CIT", most notably in its alma mater, but this is uncommon. is a private research university in Pasadena, California. Caltech is ranked among the best and most selective academic institutions in the world, and with an enrollment of approximately 2400 students (acceptance rate of only 5.7%), it is one of the world's most selective universities. The university is known for its strength in science and engineering, and is among a small group of institutes of technology in the United States which is primarily devoted to the instruction of pure and applied sciences. The institution was founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Throop in 1891 and began attracting influential scientists such as George Ellery H ...
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Nasmyth Telescope
The Nasmyth telescope, also called Nasmyth–Cassegrain or Cassegrain–Nasmyth, is a reflecting telescope developed by the Scottish inventor James Nasmyth. It is a modified form of a Cassegrain telescope, with light reflected sideways to an eyepiece. Scheme As in the Cassegrain telescope, the light falls on a concave primary mirror, then is reflected towards a convex secondary mirror. A comparatively small tertiary flat mirror reflects the light to one of the sides of the telescope. (The central hole in the primary mirror may still host a Cassegrain focus if the tertiary can be moved out of the way.) This flat mirror is placed on the altitude axis, so that the beam exits through a hole in the middle of the altitude bearing. This means the eyepiece or instrument does not need to move up and down with the telescope as the tertiary mirror's angle with the main telescope axis is adjustable as a function of the telescope's pointing and the star's elevation above the horizon; therefor ...
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Kleinmann–Low Nebula
The Kleinmann–Low Nebula (also known as the Orion KL Nebula) is an active star forming region in the Milky Way galaxy. It is a cluster of stars within a molecular cloud.Ferland pp191 The Kleinmann–Low Nebula is at the heart of the Orion Nebula, and is the most active star-forming region in it. Because of the thick dust surrounding it, it is observed primarily with infrared light, since visible light cannot pass through it. Hot stellar winds circulate off large, young, stars in Orion's nebula and heat the surrounding gas. This then causes an explosion that has a finger-like intrusion look. It is named after Douglas Kleinmann and Frank J. Low, who discovered the nebula in 1967. Between 1972 and 1973 a large amount of maps were secured with the Steward and Catalina Observatories telescopes. The luminosity of the Kleinmann–Low Nebula is approximately , or roughly 105 times that of the sun, making the nebula the brightest component of the OMC-1 Complex. The temperature of th ...
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Sagittarius B2
Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) is a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust that is located about from the center of the Milky Way. This complex is the largest molecular cloud in the vicinity of the core and one of the largest in the galaxy, spanning a region about across. The total mass of Sgr B2 is about 3 million times the mass of the Sun. The mean hydrogen density within the cloud is 3000 atoms per cm3, which is about 20–40 times denser than a typical molecular cloud. The internal structure of this cloud is complex, with varying densities and temperatures. The cloud is divided into three main cores, designated north (N), middle or main (M) and south (S) respectively. Thus Sgr B2(N) represents the north core. The sites Sgr B2(M) and Sgr B2(N) are sites of prolific star formation. The first 10 H II regions discovered were designated A through J. H II regions A–G, I and J lie within Sgr B2(M), while region K is in Sgr B2(N) and region H is in Sgr B2(S). The 5-parsec-wi ...
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Maser
A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James P. Gordon, and Herbert J. Zeiger at Columbia University in 1953. Townes, Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work leading to the maser. Masers are also used as the timekeeping device in atomic clocks, and as extremely low-noise microwave amplifiers in radio telescopes and deep-space spacecraft communication ground stations. Modern masers can be designed to generate electromagnetic waves at not only microwave frequencies but also radio and infrared frequencies. For this reason, Townes suggested replacing ''microwave'' with the word ''molecular'' as the first word in the acronym ''maser''. The laser works by the same principle as the maser but produces higher frequency ...
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Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey
Observations for the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) took place from June 2005 until September 2007 and covers 170 square degrees of the galactic plane visible from the northern hemisphere. The survey detected 8400 sources to a limiting non-uniform 1-sigma noise level in the range 30 to 60 mJy/beam. This survey is the first large-area, systematic and uniform survey of the galactic plane in the millimeter continuum. Additional data was acquired in 2009 and released in 2013. All data are currently available froIPAC Survey coverage The survey is contiguous over the range -10.5 ≤ l ≤ 90.5, , b, ≤ 0.5. Towards the Cygnus X spiral arm, the coverage was flared to , b, ≤ 1.5 for 75.5 ≤ l ≤ 87.5. In addition, cross-cuts to , b, ≤ 1.5 were made at l = 3, 15, 30 and 31. The total area of this section is 133 square degrees. With the exception of the increase in latitude, no pre-selection criteria were applied to the coverage in this region. In addition to the contiguo ...
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Event Horizon Telescope
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, which form a combined array with an angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole's event horizon. The project's observational targets include the two black holes with the largest angular diameter as observed from Earth: the black hole at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87*, pronounced "M87-Star"), and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced "Sagittarius A-Star") at the center of the Milky Way. The Event Horizon Telescope project is an international collaboration that was launched in 2009 after a long period of theoretical and technical developments. On the theory side, work on the photon orbit and first simulations of what a black hole would look like progressed to predictions of VLBI imaging for the ...
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Atacama Large Millimeter Array
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, which observe electromagnetic radiation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The array has been constructed on the elevation Chajnantor plateau - near the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. This location was chosen for its high elevation and low humidity, factors which are crucial to reduce noise and decrease signal attenuation due to Earth's atmosphere. ALMA provides insight on star birth during the early Stelliferous era and detailed imaging of local star and planet formation. ALMA is an international partnership amongst Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Chile. Costing about US$1.4 billion, it is the most expensive ground-based telescope in operation. ALMA began scientific observations in the second half of 2011 and the first images were relea ...
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Submillimeter Array
The Submillimeter Array (SMA) consists of eight diameter radio telescopes arranged as an interferometer for submillimeter wavelength observations. It is the first purpose-built submillimeter interferometer, constructed after successful interferometry experiments using the pre-existing James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (now decommissioned) as an interferometer. All three of these observatories are located at Mauna Kea Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and have been operated together as a ten element interferometer in the 230 and 345 GHz bands (eSMA, for extended Submillimeter Array). The baseline lengths presently in use range from . The radio frequencies accessible to this telescope range from which includes rotational transitions of dozens of molecular species as well as continuum emission from interstellar dust grains. Although the array is capable of operating both day and night, most of the observations take place at nighttime when ...
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Interferometry
Interferometry is a technique which uses the ''interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber optics, engineering metrology, optical metrology, oceanography, seismology, spectroscopy (and its applications to chemistry), quantum mechanics, nuclear and particle physics, plasma physics, remote sensing, biomolecular interactions, surface profiling, microfluidics, mechanical stress/strain measurement, velocimetry, optometry, and making holograms. Interferometers are devices that extract information from interference. They are widely used in science and industry for the measurement of microscopic displacements, refractive index changes and surface irregularities. In the case with most interferometers, light from a single source is split into two beams that travel in different optical paths, which are then combined again to produce interfer ...
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Messier 82
Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is a starburst galaxy approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is the second-largest member of the M81 Group, with the D25 isophotal diameter of . It is about five times more luminous than the Milky Way and its central region is about one hundred times more luminous. The starburst activity is thought to have been triggered by interaction with neighboring galaxy M81. As one of the closest starburst galaxies to Earth, M82 is the prototypical example of this galaxy type. SN 2014J, a type Ia supernova, was discovered in the galaxy on 21 January 2014. In 2014, in studying M82, scientists discovered the brightest pulsar yet known, designated M82 X-2. Discovery M82, with M81, was discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774; he described it as a "nebulous patch", this one about degree away from the other, "very pale and of elongated shape". In 1779, Pierre Méchain independently rediscovered ...
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