Keck Observatory Receives $3.5 Million to Build Advanced Laser System
Keck Observatory Receives $3.5 Million to Build Advanced Laser System
The W.M. Keck Observatory in Waimea, Hawaii, has announced grants totaling $3.5 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore and W.M. Keck foundations in support of a multiyear project to build an advanced Keck II laser.
The grants will support the development of a new laser system that will improve the performance of the current adaptive optics system on the Keck II telescope and advance future technology initiatives at the observatory. Among other things, the new laser will be non-pulsed, which researchers say results in a more capable and efficient system.
Developing an advanced laser system is one of the first steps in the observatory's $50 million initiative to design a Next Generation Adaptive Optics system that, when completed, will far exceed what is possible with the current adaptive optics system. It is unclear what astronomers might discover once the new technology is in place, but scientific breakthroughs that have come from the original system include definitive evidence of a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
"Thanks to the resolving power of the Keck Telescopes, you can get the clearest view of the center of our galaxy and see the stars that are residing at its heart," said University of California, Los Angeles astronomy professor Andrea Ghez, who has been observing, with her team, the galactic center of the Milky Way for the last seventeen years and has helped to prove the existence of the black hole. "New mysteries are being revealed to help us understand how our galaxy formed, how black holes form, how they interact with their surroundings and influence the evolution of galaxies, the fundamental building blocks of our universe. We are seeing things that no one expected."
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