Space Telescopes
...ear to be shrouded in dust that blocks most of their visible and are so far away that their visible. Given the lead time to fund, design, build, and test each generation of space telescope, several new projects are already well in the works. The space Interferometry Mission (SIM), for example, expected to launch in 2009, will use optical interferometry to determine the positions and distances of stars several hundred times more accurately than previous programs and to probe nearby stars for Earth-sized planets. The highest profile space-telescope project under construction is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a joint effort between NASA, the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) that is scheduled to launch in 2011. The JWST is a 6-m telescope that, once in space, should be able to make observations 10,000 times faster than Spitzer and to see objects 400 times fainter that those visible using the largest Earth-based telescopes. Such designs specs do not come with out their challenges, however; in particular, the JWST team must figure out how to put an 8-m mirror into a standard-sized rocket, once in space, deploy it into the most appropriate shape. The telescope Keck in Hawaii, for example, has 36 small mirrors that are linked via actuators and operated via computer. The computer continuously adjusts the positions and angles to ensure that all 36 mirrors essentially take on the shape of a single 10-m mirror. The JWST also features several next generation instruments, including the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which will be used to study distant stellar populations, star formations, comets, and other objects in space. The ESA is also funding development of the NIRSPEC (Near-Infrared Multi Object Spectrograph), which will operate in the near IR (0.6 to 5 millimeter) range to study galaxy formation, clustering, chemical abundances, stars formation, galactic nuclei, and measurement of the initial mass function of stars. ESA’s telescope named FISRT will unveil many incognitos and mysteries about when the first galaxies started to form and evolve: no instrument today can peer into that era. FIRST, merited a full-day session at the conference of the International Society for Optical and Engineering in Munich will be launched in 2007 to see the emission from dust illuminated by the first stellar ‘baby booms’ in the history of the Universe. FIRST will open a new generation of giant space telescopes, and will be the first instrument able to look very far in space and time without being confused by the dust. FIRST will actually be able to observe light re-emitted by the dust, which is illuminated by the intense star-formation, and hence can be used to measure the total amount of energy produced by the newborn ...