South Pole Telescope

great, great news. the south pole telescope (SPT), headed by our own john carlstrom here at the university of chicago kavli institute, saw its first light on february 16th (i'm clearly still a bit behind the news, but i'm catching up!). SPT is a 10m telescope operating in the submillimeter wavelength range (between infrared and radio in the electromagnetic spectrum), with its camera cooled to a mere 1/4 of a degree above absolute zero. the first observations were made of jupiter at wavelengths of 2 and 3mm, and demonstrated that the scope was working as designed. ultimately, the goal of the telescope is to help astronomers understand the nature of dark energy by using the S-Z effect to map galaxy clusters, and to make measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. here is the SPT blog with stories of the assembly of the telescope and lots of nice pictures. here is the nsf press release.

oh and fyi, from march 2007-march 2008 is the international polar year. what a great thing that it's starting off on an astronomical note. see this page for wonderful images from the polar regions.

[ryan, who is part of the SPT team, was in the office the other day telling stories of the assembly of the telescope. i clearly immediately asked if they had seen any penguins, but apparently penguins don't live on the south pole. huge disappointment!]