|
U of L professor, students have hand in one of top 50 inventions of the year |
|
|
|
Written by Caroline Zentner
|
|
Friday, November 20 2009, 9:48 PM |
When Time Magazine recently announced its top 50 inventions of the year, University of Lethbridge astrophysicist David Naylor was pleased to see the Herschel Space Observatory was right up there in seventh spot.
“To be seven shows that it is actually getting some notoriety even though it’s not catching much press in North America, partly because there’s been an embargo on the (results),” Naylor said.
Launched by the European Space Agency in early May, the Herschel took four months and travelled about 1.5 million kilometres to get to its final destination in space. Naylor and about 100 of his students spent 15 years working on one of the pieces of equipment on the telescope. The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver, or SPIRE, is an infrared measuring device and one of three scientific instruments aboard the Herschel that help it see far back in time. SE measures the composition and physical conditions of material in the universe.
“We’ve had teething troubles, as we imagined we would, testing how the instrument works in space. We tested it on the ground but we have gravity on the ground and we don’t have the gravitational forces out there,” Naylor said. “It’s taken to now to figure it out but we’ve been getting the results as they come in and they’re absolutely astonishing.”
Unfortunately, Naylor can’t say more because the results are under embargo for another two to three weeks. The European Space Agency plans to release information about Herschel’s first results at an upcoming meeting in Madrid, a meeting Naylor wouldn’t miss for the world.
A few images captured by Herschel are posted on the European Space Agency website in a press release titled “Herschel views deep-space pearls on a cosmic string.”
“They’ve blown us out of the water with what they’re showing us,” he said. “It’s absolutely magnificent. The spectroscopy, which isn’t as snazzy and appealing as a picture, that we’re getting is really fantastic. We’ve discovered lots of things, new molecules. There’s lots of discoveries that will come out; I can’t say more than that at this time.”
The Herschel is sensitive to a tiny amount of energy and allows scientists to see vast distances across the universe. It’s three-year mission is to study relatively cool objects in space. Data from the Herschel will help astronomers see farther back in time than ever before.
Some of Naylor’s students are also involved in finding the best location to install the European Extremely Large Telescope, a project by the European Southern Observatory to build the world’s largest ground-based telescope.
“My team’s leading the efforts in that,” he said, adding two people have been in Chile launching probes that measure the atmosphere and transmit data to a ground-based receiver.
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, November 20 2009, 9:49 PM )
|
