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NASA has selected a team led by scientists from the University of Arizona, Tucson to develop the near-infrared camera for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The new telescope will have a primary of mirror 6 metres in diameter, two and a half times the diameter of Hubble's mirror and thus will be able to detect much fainter objects than the existing space telescope. It will also have cameras to detect near- and mid-infrared radiation allowing it to observe dark objects from the heat they emit. The Hubble Space Telescope's infrared camera NICMOS has only recently been repaired after its coolant became exhausted in 1999. The team, led by Dr George Rieke, will work with scientists and engineers led by Dr Gene Serabyn from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the European Space Agency to enable NGST to see further into the infrared portion of the spectrum.
The Hubble Space Telescope has now been in operation for 12 years and is due to be replaced by NGST in 2010. Like Hubble, NGST may prove to be a useful tool in studying asteroids and comets in particular those at a large distance from the Sun. Minerals on the surfaces of asteroids absorb characteristic wavelengths of infrared that allows them to be identified. Observations of asteroids in infrared wavelengths can, therefore, be used to distinguish between metallic, stony and carbon-rich asteroids. For small asteroids and comets their makeup is an important factor in whether they survive passage through our atmosphere to form a crater on the ground or whether they detonate at altitude.
More info: Next Generation Telescope Homepage
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