|
NASA KIN will help answer oldest question
of Human race.
[29th Sep 2005]
Keck Interferometer Nuller Instrument with Adaptive optics and laser technology looks clear and closer into the space
Are we alone
in the universe? Why so much of space for so little
of us? Keck Interferometer Nuller Instrument (KIN),
the biggest technological breakthrough in resolving
distant lights will help astronomers and physicist
to answer these questions.
NASA engineers at Keck
Observatory, Hawaii successfully suppressed the blinding
light from three stars including VEGA by 100 times.
This development will enable astronomers and physicist
to trace and detect the dust discs around many sun's
in our galactic neighborhood. These discs are normally
not in observation mode due to starlight’s.
This is second significant news from keck observatory
after the discovery of 10th planet.
Keck Observatory has
two 10 meter (33 feets) telescopes. These telescopes
are linked with a keck Interferometer to resolve the
lights from telescopes. Keck Interferometer has a
resolving power as huge as a football field size telescope.
Technological breakthrough of suppressing lights is
achieved by adding an instrument called "NULLER"
to the Keck Interferometer.
The first high-dynamic-range
interferometer mode planned to come on line at the
Keck Observatory is mid-infrared nulling. This observational
mode, which is based on the cancellation of the on-axis
starlight arriving at the twin Keck telescopes, will
be used to examine nearby stellar systems for the
presence of circumstellar exozodiacal emission.
The primary goal of
the Keck Interferometer Nuller is the detection and
characterization of exo-zodiacal dust disks around
nearby main sequence stars. The characterization of
such dust disks is a vital preliminary step on the
road to the direct detection of terrestrial planets
with eventual space missions such as NASA's Terrestrial
Planet Finder' and ESA's Darwin2 missions. This is
especially true in the case of the themal infrared,
where exo-zodiacal emission is potentially much brighter
than the emission from terrestrial planetary analogs.
"We have proven
that the Keck Interferometer can block light from
nearby stars, which will allow us to survey the amount
of dust around them," said Dr. Jim Fanson, project
manager for the Keck Interferometer at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Before the team at Keck Observatory
starts the survey of dust discs around stars, sensitivity
of a Nuller Instrument needs more refinement. Considering
the more improvements and precision to bring in for
KIN, such surveys will begin only by late 2006.
Collaborating informations
from NASA's all planet hunting missions should provide
enough information about all possible earth like planets.
Information on their size, climatic conditions, surface
conditions, possibilities of life etc.
"People have been
talking about whether there are other earths out there
for 2,500 years. Only now are we developing the technology
to go find out," said Michael Devirian, manager
of NASA's Navigator Program at JPL, which is investigating
potential planet-exploring missions.
So far, scientists around
the world have found 150 planets orbiting other stars.
Most are giants, like Jupiter; none is as small as
Earth.
Scientists believe the best odds of finding life outside
our solar system are on Earth-sized planets, particularly
those with the right
temperature, density and chemistry.
JPL manages the Keck
Interferometer and the Terrestrial Planet Finder missions
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena. The W.M. Keck Observatory is funded by
California Institute of Technology, the University
of California and NASA, and is managed by the California
Association for Research in Astronomy, Kamuela, Hawaii.
Original News can be
found here
|
