NuSTAR in Orbit

A NASA orbiting telescope able to view the cosmos through the lens of hard x-rays has been launched. Its rocket ignited in the night skies south of Kwajalein Atoll after being dropped from the underbelly of a Lockheed L-1011 plane. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) was developed by a team of scientists and engineers under the leadership of Fiona Harrison from the California Institute of Technology. It will use an innovative system of nested x-ray mirrors to open a new window onto the cosmos. It focuses the light into images 10 times sharper and 100 times more sensitive than any previous high-energy x-ray telescope.

“Every time there is a new instrument with significantly better sensitivity than any previous instrument, significant discoveries are bound to follow” said SLAC astrophysicist Greg Madejski.

Probable contributors that NuSTAR is suited to view are the innermost regions of black hole event horizons, where particles being slurped up by black holes are boosted to near-light speeds, like too many race cars jammed onto a too-small track, with cosmic fireworks as the result.

NuSTAR will team up with other telescopes to study the high-energy universe. It will use its x-ray eye to examine jets of particles blasting out of active galactic nuclei that already have been pinpointed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

With NuSTAR, the cosmic rainbow will be one step closer to complete.

Keywords:- NuSTAR orbiting telescope, Lockheed L-1011 plane, high-energy universe, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

      

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