A telescope nestled 9,000 feet high in the Chilean Andes operated by a student nestled in a chair in campus’ new Biomedical Physical Sciences Building - that dream is about a year way.
The SOAR telescope, which is operated by MSU and its three partners in the Southern Astrophysical Research, will help promote MSU’s astronomy research capabilities amongst its national peers.
The telescope is expected to be operational in November 2002.
“What this does is brings us very prominently into the international astrological picture,” said Eugene Capriotti, associate chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “It gives us an eye to the universe that we presently don’t have.”
Capriotti said MSU doesn’t have any guaranteed time on a telescope, but SOAR will provide MSU researchers and students with more than 40 nights of observation a year. That could help MSU recruit more astronomy graduate students, he said.
“The job market (for astronomers) right now is terrific, so we are looking to get a lot of grad students in to meet the demand,” Capriotti said. “Students coming to Michigan State will not only have an opportunity to use this telescope, but use other telescopes and instruments throughout the world.”
Astronomy Professor Timothy Beers said MSU’s association with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which will pay operational costs of the telescope for the first 20 years, will open up more connections for MSU.
“This is an institutional investment, an investment in the science of astronomy,” he said. “Before (MSU’s) investment in a telescope they were not really a player.”
Beers said the telescope will provide some of the sharpest images in the world. Its mirror will adapt for both image motion and distortion due to weather. Its location in Chile will limit urban light interference and provide the first high-resolution telescope images in the Southern Hemisphere.
The instruments can be operated from the remote observation lab on campus.
“(The lab) should have large, NASA-esque screens like in Houston,” Beers said. “Large windows off the atrium will allow students and the general public to look in and see what is going on.”
Beers is working to raise an additional $2 million for the telescope. MSU is paying $6 million of the $28 million construction cost.
The construction’s progress can be monitored at MSU’s SOAR sight, www.pa.msu.edu/soarmsu/.
Astronomy Professor Jack Baldwin said the telescope will allow MSU researchers, such as himself, to examine very distant, luminous black holes called quasars.
“They are billions of light years way, so we are effectively looking back in time to something much closer to when the universe was created,” he said.
Baldwin said this study and examination of basic elements will help determine the galaxy’s and the universe’s formations and structure.
MSU Provost Lou Anna Simon said it’s important for MSU to have a telescope they have helped design.
“We will be known not just for our experiments but as making a real contribution as a world-class institution,” she said. “It keeps with the land grant mission, putting astronomy and all the wonders of the universe in reach of our own students as well as the K-12 community.”
