![]() ![]() The facility contains a large, stainless steel tank filled with ultrapure water, and the chamber is lined with glass tubes that can detect the unique kind of radiation created when a neutrino does interact with the water's subatomic particles. To detect such ghostly particles, Super-K was built far enough underground to isolate its detectors from background noise. ![]() For instance, more than 50 trillion neutrinos from the sun passed through your body during the time it took to read this sentence. Neutrinos are hard to spot because they're usually overwhelmed by background radiation, and because the particles can pass through most matter without a trace. The seemingly odd location, far below Japan's Mount Kamioka, is a function of the telescope's unusual mission: the search for neutrinos-small, uncharged particles born in nuclear reactions, such as those inside stars. Unlike most observatories perched on high peaks, Japan's Super-K observatory lies more than half a mile (a thousand meters) under a mountain. This faint radiation is mostly blocked by water vapor in our atmosphere, but the Pole's cold, dry conditions open a window on the CMB, helping astronomers learn more about the age and evolution of our universe, and perhaps even allowing them to one day unlock the secrets of dark energy-the mysterious force believed to be driving the universe's accelerated expansion. The telescope is used to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of primordial light from the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. Astronomers use a single word to describe these conditions: perfect. Winter temperatures can dip to -100 degrees Fahrenheit (-73 degrees Celsius), and the facility sits 11 hours by plane from the closest city. The South Pole Telescope sits on a miles-thick ice sheet at a dizzying altitude of almost 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). The instrument is able to search out some of the most distant and faintest objects in the universe, allowing astronomers to observe the birth of new stars, the characteristics of black holes, and even some of the primordial chemical remnants of the big bang. The GTC is co-owned by the government of Spain, two Mexican institutes, and the University of Florida. In fact, the remote and dizzying locale created a few construction difficulties, and it took seven years of hard work before the telescope captured its first light in July 2007. The enormous telescope is perched high atop a volcanic peak on La Palma, in the Spanish-run Canary Islands, where skies are dark and observation conditions are ideal. Gran Telescopio Canariasīoasting a massive 34-foot-wide (10.4-meter-wide) segmented mirror, the Gran Telescopio Canarias is currently the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world. "And when we think of Hubble's incredible results, it's hard to imagine what will come out of ALMA." 2. "It's a bigger jump than Hubble was over any existing ground telescope," Puxley said. ALMA's full power will surpass previous submillimeter instruments by factors of ten to a hundred in areas such as field of view, sensitivity, and resolution. ![]() "The air pressure there is almost 50 percent that at sea level, so some people refer to it jokingly as 'halfway to space.'"ĪLMA's antennas work together to scan the sky at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, observing the oldest galaxies as well as baby planets just beginning to form around young stars. "It's a tough place to work," said Phil Puxley, of the National Science Foundation. When fully built in 2013, the finished facility will sport 66 antennas sprouting from the high, dry Chajnantor Plateau, at an altitude of 16,400 feet (5,000 meters). This radio astronomy telescope represents an unprecedented partnership between Europe, North America, East Asia, and the Republic of Chile. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) But to push the boundaries of astronomy while planted solidly on the ground, Earth-bound observatories tend to be among the most extreme scientific facilities on the planet. ![]() Telescopes orbiting Earth can peer billions of light-years into space to observe incredible phenomena across the cosmos. ![]()
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