10-07-2019, 05:20 PM
Thanks, Paul. I was going to post about the Saturn moons story but you beat me to it! The work was done using the Subaru Observatory on Mauna Kea.
In the meantime, a new planet-hunting instrument has been commissioned at Gemini that will search for potentially habitable exoplanets:
"Nearly a decade in the making, exoplanet-hunting instrument installed in Hawaii "
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-decade-exo...awaii.html
"Imagine trying to assemble one of those huge LEGO sets, except there's no instruction book; you've done it once before, but then you had to take it all apart and put it in little bags," said Jacob Bean, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. "Also you're at 14,000 feet, and when the air is that thin it impairs your judgment and thinking, and so here you are working 12-hour shifts lifting heavy things but also trying to put together a delicate instrument."
I've been involved in commissioning instruments delivered from overseas before on Mauna Kea, and know very much how Bean feels!
In the meantime, a new planet-hunting instrument has been commissioned at Gemini that will search for potentially habitable exoplanets:
"Nearly a decade in the making, exoplanet-hunting instrument installed in Hawaii "
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-decade-exo...awaii.html
"Imagine trying to assemble one of those huge LEGO sets, except there's no instruction book; you've done it once before, but then you had to take it all apart and put it in little bags," said Jacob Bean, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. "Also you're at 14,000 feet, and when the air is that thin it impairs your judgment and thinking, and so here you are working 12-hour shifts lifting heavy things but also trying to put together a delicate instrument."
I've been involved in commissioning instruments delivered from overseas before on Mauna Kea, and know very much how Bean feels!