03-07-09 Astrophotonics:measuring up to the universePhotonics opens up new era for astronomical instruments.The astronomical community must embrace new technology to develop the next generation of astronomical instruments says Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Federation Fellow at the University of Sydney,Australia.This was the focus of his keynote presentation "Astrophotonics:the next wave in Observational Cosmology" delivered at the World of Photonics Congress 2009,Munich,Germany.The merging of astronomy and photonics over the last decade has evolved into the new field of astrophotonics yielding bigger and better astronomical instruments.Current plans include extremely large telescopes (ELTs) measuring up to 42 m in diameter,optical frequency combs to measure spectra with even greater precision and multimode fibres to collect more light.Despite the many technological advances there remains great scope to further progress measurements beyond the diffraction limit and achieve a major step-up in sensitivity."We know an awful lot about the universe," began Bland-Hawthorn,"but there is an awful lot we don't know." Headline goals,including the detection of extrasolar planets around nearby stars and observation of the first star-forming systems in the early universe,are limited by present capabilities.He believes incorporating other technology will help answer some of the bigger questions surrounding the universe World-of-photonics |
