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Spider is a balloon-borne experiment designed to search for primordial gravitational waves imprinted on the 
The Spider instrument consists of six degree-resolution telescopes cooled to liquid Helium temperature (4 K) which observe at frequencies of 100 GHz, 150 GHz, and 280 GHz (corresponding to wavelengths of 3 mm, 2 mm, and 1.1 mm). Each telescope is coupled to a polarisation-sensitive transition-edge bolometer (TES) array cooled to 300 mK. Spider was the first instrument to successfully demonstrate time-domain multiplexed TES detectors in a space-like environment. At the time of the first flight over Antarctica in 2015, Spider was the most sensitive microwave instrument ever made.
The primary science goals include:
# characterization of the curl-free component of the CMB polarization on the largest scales
# searching for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the CMB polarization
# characterization of the polarization properties of the emission from our own Milky Way Galaxy
The first balloon flight of the experiment launched in January 2015 from
Group Research Homepage
Spider Homepage
Spider 2014/15 campaign blog
The Spider Collaboration, "A Constraint on Primordial B-Modes from the First Flight of the SPIDER Balloon-Borne Telescope"
cosmic microwave background
In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...
(CMB). Measuring the strength of this signal puts limits on inflationary theory
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation, or just inflation, is a theory of exponential expansion of space in the early universe. The inflationary epoch lasted from seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singularity ...
.
The Spider instrument consists of six degree-resolution telescopes cooled to liquid Helium temperature (4 K) which observe at frequencies of 100 GHz, 150 GHz, and 280 GHz (corresponding to wavelengths of 3 mm, 2 mm, and 1.1 mm). Each telescope is coupled to a polarisation-sensitive transition-edge bolometer (TES) array cooled to 300 mK. Spider was the first instrument to successfully demonstrate time-domain multiplexed TES detectors in a space-like environment. At the time of the first flight over Antarctica in 2015, Spider was the most sensitive microwave instrument ever made.
The primary science goals include:
# characterization of the curl-free component of the CMB polarization on the largest scales
# searching for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the CMB polarization
# characterization of the polarization properties of the emission from our own Milky Way Galaxy
The first balloon flight of the experiment launched in January 2015 from McMurdo Station
McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...
, Antarctica, with support from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility
The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) (established in
1961, formerly known as the National Scientific Balloon Facility
(NSBF)) is a NASA facility responsible for providing launch, tracking and control, airspace coordination, telemetry ...
. This Long Duration Balloon flight lasted for about 17 days, mapping about 10% of the full sky. The data from this flight produced high signal-to-noise images of the intensity and linear polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, with noise levels 3--5 times lower than the Planck spacecraft
''Planck'' was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013, which mapped the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and small angu ...
in the same region of the sky, resulting in precise measurements of the CMB and Galactic foreground radiation, as well as a robust limit on the cosmological tensor-to-scalar ratio. Further flights planned for successive seasons enable upgrades and changes to the modular telescope, increased frequency coverage and depth.
References
External links
Group Research Homepage
Spider Homepage
Spider 2014/15 campaign blog
The Spider Collaboration, "A Constraint on Primordial B-Modes from the First Flight of the SPIDER Balloon-Borne Telescope"
See also
*BICEP and Keck Array
BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) and the Keck Array are a series of cosmic microwave background (CMB) List of cosmic microwave background experiments, experiments. They aim to measure the Polarization in astronomy, p ...
*Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor
The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is an array of microwave telescopes at a high-altitude site in the Atacama Desert of Chile as part of the Parque Astronómico de Atacama. The CLASS experiment aims to improve our understanding of c ...
*Atacama Cosmology Telescope
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is a cosmological millimeter-wave telescope located on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile. ACT makes high-sensitivity, arcminute resolution, microwave-wavelength surveys of the sky in ord ...
*South Pole Telescope
The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a diameter telescope located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. The telescope is designed for observations in the microwave, millimeter-wave, and submillimeter-wave regions of the electrom ...
*POLARBEAR
POLARBEAR (POLARization of the Background Radiation) is a cosmic microwave background polarization experiment located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile in the Antofagasta Region. The POLARBEAR experiment is mounted on the Huan Tran Telescope ...
*LiteBIRD
''LiteBIRD'' (''Lite (Light) satellite for the studies of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection'') is a planned small space observatory that aims to detect the footprint of the primordial gravitational wave ...
, space-based CMB B-mode polarization search project
{{CMB experiments
Astronomical instruments
Balloon-borne telescopes
Cosmic microwave background experiments