Sunday, December 18, 2011

New Submillimetre Camera Sheds Light on the Dark Regions of the Universe

New Submillimetre Camera Sheds Light on the Dark Regions of the Universe:



A composite image of the Whirlpool Galaxy (also known as M51). The green image is from the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the optical wavelength. The submillimetre light detected by SCUBA-2 is shown in red (850 microns) and blue (450 microns). The Whirlpool Galaxy lies at an estimated distance of 31 million light years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici Credit: JAC / UBC / Nasa



The stars and faint galaxies you see when you look up at the night sky are all emitting light within the visible light spectrum — the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum we can see with our unaided eyes or through optical telescopes. But our galaxy, and many others, contain huge amounts of cold dust that absorbs visible light. This accounts for the dark regions.


A new camera recently unveiled at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii promises to figuratively shed light on this dark part of the universe. The SCUBA-2 submillimetre camera (SCUBA in this case is an acronym for Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array) can detect light at lower energy levels, allowing astronomers to gather data on these dark areas and ultimately learn more about our universe and its formation. (...)
Read the rest of New Submillimetre Camera Sheds Light on the Dark Regions of the Universe (599 words)




© Amy Shira Teitel for Universe Today, 2011. |
Permalink |
2 comments |
Add to
del.icio.us


Post tags: , , ,


Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh



No comments:

Post a Comment