Johns Hopkins University | 2015 Oct 05
Scientists prepare to move telescope to desert in Chile
An effort to peer into the origins of the universe with the most effective instrument ever used in the effort is taking a big step forward, as Johns Hopkins University scientists begin shipping a two-story-tall microwave telescope to its base in Chile.Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Pieces of the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor [CLASS] telescope will soon be packed in two 40-foot containers and sent south, as scientists get closer to taking observations of a faint, ancient electromagnetic energy that pervades the sky, holding clues about how the universe began. ...
In early and mid-October, professors, post-doctoral researchers and students working at the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy will pack two containers with pieces of the telescope built at Johns Hopkins. The telescope is designed to detect subtle patterns in the cosmic microwave background [CMB], a relic thermal energy of the hot infant universe more than 13 billion years old. By sea, highway and dirt road, the telescope parts will take a six-week trek to an elevation of about 17,000 feet in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.
Members of the Johns Hopkins team will then reassemble the telescope, which stands about 24 feet tall, fitting the base with one of four cylinders that contain detectors designed to receive the signal. In the next two years, three more cylinders will be mounted on two towers, enabling the instrument to detect four electromagnetic frequencies and improve the quality of the observations. ...
JHU: In a CLASS by Itself
