NASA’s NuSTAR telescope is being prepared for launch in California, following a cross-country truck trip that started in Virginia. The NuSTAR spacecraft arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base Thursday morning, and will be moved to a hangar where it will be attached to a Pegasus XL rocket for launch in March. NuSTAR, for Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is an observatory using the latest technology to examine X-rays from objects in our solar system, to giant black holes billions of light years away. Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology, principal investigator for NuSTAR, says it is the “…first NASA mission to focus X-rays in the high energy range, creating the most detailed images ever taken in this slice of the electromagnetic spectrum.”
NASA adds that NuSTAR will also scan for microflares on the sun, which some scientists think heat the sun’s million-degree atmosphere. NuSTAR will also look for a dark matter particle on the sun, that scientists say - if found - could help explain what dark matter is. During its two-year mission, NuSTAR will also survey black holes, map remnants of supernovas and study particle jets which leave black holes near the speed of light.
The launch of NuSTAR is set for March 14th from an aircraft in the area of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific. The Pegasus XL rocket housing NuSTAR will be carried on an L-1011 “Stargazer” aircraft, which will drop the rocket from the aircraft while in flight. The Pegasus rocket will then carry the NuSTAR observatory into earth orbit.
Click here to visit the NASA NuSTAR web site.
Click here to visit the NuSTAR web site at Caltech.
You can contact Mike Royer at mroyer5@yahoo.com or at 407-473-2287 or 386-492-7438.
Comments