The findings demonstrate a novel strategy to explore the physics and history of the universe. Equipped with unique capabilities to track microwave energy fluctuations, a small observatory in the Andes mountains of northern Chile produced maps of 75% of the sky as part of an effort to more accuratel
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New Metamaterial Tiles Improve Sensitivity of Telescopes
Written by AZoOpticsJan 27 2021
New metamaterial tiles designed by a multi-institutional research team will help enhance the sensitivity of telescopes that are being constructed at the distinguished Simons Observatory in Chile.
Researchers developed new metamaterial tiles that will improve the sensitivity of telescopes at the Simons Observatory by absorbing stray light. The top left photo shows one tile, with its anti-reflective surface shown in the insert. The bottom left photos show the back of the tile, and the right photo shows the assembly of 240 tiles installed on the wall of an optics tube. Image Credit: Zhilei Xu, University of Pennsylvania.
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Metamaterial Tiles Boost Sensitivity of Large Telescopes
Low-cost, mass producible technology poised to help Simons Observatory yield new insights into how the universe began
WASHINGTON – A multi-institutional group of researchers has developed new metamaterial tiles that will help improve the sensitivity of telescopes being built at the preeminent Simons Observatory in Chile. The tiles have been incorporated into receivers that will be deployed at the observatory by 2022.
The Simons Observatory is the center of an ambitious effort to measure the cosmic microwave background – electromagnetic radiation left over from an early stage of the universe – using some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated ground-based telescopes. These measurements will help improve our understanding of how the universe began, what it is made of and how it evolved into what it is today.
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New View of Nature’s Oldest Light Suggest Universe Is 13.77 Billion Years Old
From an observatory high above Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers have taken a new look at the oldest light in the universe.
Their observations, plus a bit of cosmic geometry, suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old – give or take 40 million years. A Cornell researcher co-authored one of two papers about the findings, which add a fresh twist to an ongoing debate in the astrophysics community.
The new estimate, using data gathered at the National Science Foundation’s Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), matches the one provided by the standard model of the universe, as well as measurements of the same light made by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, which measured remnants of the Big Bang from 2009 to ’13.