. 24/7 Space News .
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
SoCal astronomers team up to commission most advanced camera in the world
by Staff Writers
Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Apr 17, 2018

illustration only

Somewhere in the vastness of the universe another habitable planet likely exists. And it may not be that far - astronomically speaking - from our own solar system.

Distinguishing that planet's light from its star, however, can be problematic. But an international team led by UC Santa Barbara physicist Benjamin Mazin has developed a new instrument to detect planets around the nearest stars. It is the world's largest and most advanced superconducting camera. The team's work appears in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

The group, which includes Dimitri Mawet of the California Institute of Technology and Eugene Serabyn of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, created a device named DARKNESS (the DARK-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer), the first 10,000-pixel integral field spectrograph designed to overcome the limitations of traditional semiconductor detectors.

It employs Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors that, in conjunction with a large telescope and an adaptive optics system, enable direct imaging of planets around nearby stars.

"Taking a picture of an exoplanet is extremely challenging because the star is much brighter than the planet, and the planet is very close to the star," said Mazin, who holds the Worster Chair in Experimental Physics at UCSB.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, DARKNESS is an attempt to overcome some of the technical barriers to detecting planets. It can take the equivalent of thousands of frames per second without any read noise or dark current, which are among the primary sources of error in other instruments.

It also has the ability to determine the wavelength and arrival time of every photon. This time domain information is important for distinguishing a planet from scattered or refracted light called speckles.

"This technology will lower the contrast floor so that we can detect fainter planets," Mazin explained.

"We hope to approach the photon noise limit, which will give us contrast ratios close to 10-8, allowing us to see planets 100 million times fainter than the star. At those contrast levels, we can see some planets in reflected light, which opens up a whole new domain of planets to explore. The really exciting thing is that this is a technology pathfinder for the next generation of telescopes."

Designed for the 200-inch Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, DARKNESS acts as both the science camera and a focal-plane wave-front sensor, quickly measuring the light and then sending a signal back to a rubber mirror that can form into a new shape 2,000 times a second.

This process cleans up the atmospheric distortion that causes stars to twinkle by suppressing the starlight and enabling higher contrast ratios between the star and the planet.

During the past year and a half, the team has employed DARKNESS on four runs at Palomar to work out bugs. The researchers will return in May to take more data on certain planets and to demonstrate their progress in improving the contrast ratio.

"Our hope is that one day we will be able to build an instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii or La Palma," Mazin said. "With that, we'll be able to take pictures of planets in the habitable zones of nearby low mass stars and look for life in their atmospheres. That's the long-term goal and this is an important step toward that."

+ Hello DARKNESS


Related Links
University of California - Santa Barbara
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It


Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly


paypal only
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal


STELLAR CHEMISTRY
NASA Announces Independent Review Board Members for James Webb Space Telescope
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 09, 2018
NASA has assembled members of an external Independent Review Board for the agency's James Webb Space Telescope. The board will evaluate a wide range of factors influencing Webb's mission success and reinforce the agency's approach to completing the final integration and testing phase, launch campaign, and commissioning for NASA's next flagship space science observatory. "We are exploring every aspect of Webb's final testing and integration to ensure a successful mission, delivering on its scientif ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
NASA's New Space 'Botanist' Arrives at Launch Site

First Steps to Space: Yuri Gagarin's Military Service Archive Declassified

Cosmonaut Avdeyev: We Must Survive in Any Situation

Top tomatoes thanks to Mars missions

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
ULA Atlas V launch to feature full complement of Aerojet Rocketdyne solid rocket boosters

RL10 Selected for OmegA Rocket

ISRO not facing funds crunch: Chairman K.Sivan

Alaska Aerospace Clarifies Commercial Aerospace Plans For Kodiak

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
The Rock Outcrop 'Tome' Continues to Garner Interest On Mars

NASA scientist to discuss 'Swimming in Martian Lakes: Curiosity at Gale Crater'

Mars impact crater or supervolcano?

Mars Express to get major software update

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Flowers on the Moon? China's Chang'e-4 to launch lunar spring

The Long Game: China Seeks to Transfer Its Silk Industry to Far Side of the Moon

China to launch Long March-5 Y3 rocket in late 2018

China's 'space dream': A Long March to the moon

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Airbus has shipped SES-12 highly innovative satellite to launch base

Storm hunter launched to International Space Station

SpaceX says Iridium satellite payload deployed

Spacecom selects SSL to build AMOS-8 comsat with advanced capabilities

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
NIST's new quantum method generates really random numbers

Virtual contact lenses for radar satellites

Japan 'rare earth' haul sparks hopes of cutting China reliance

'Everything-repellent' coating could kidproof phones, homes

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Circumbinary castaways: Short-period binary systems can eject orbiting worlds

SpaceX Falcon 9 Lofts TESS Planet Hunter

An amazingly wide variety of disks

Newly discovered salty subglacial lakes could help search for life in solar system

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Pluto's Largest Moon, Charon, Gets Its First Official Feature Names

Juno Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter's North Pole

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, gets its first official feature names

SSL to provide of critical capabilities for Europa Flyby Mission









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.