NASA gives UA $5M to build demo mirror for new telescope

Dan Hoffman Arizona Daily Wildcat Astrophysicist John Mather makes a point during his lecture Friday night at Steward Observatory. Mather spoke on his research supporting the Big Bang theory on the origins of the universe.

Eager to solve this ancient mystery is astrophysicist John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., whose past research has produced the most convincing evidence of the Big Bang theory for the origin of the universe.

Mather on Friday gave the 1998 Marc Aaronson Memorial Lecture titled, "Observing the Cosmic Dark Ages with the Next Generation Space Telescope." The free public talk was held in the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory lecture hall.

As a key scientist behind NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer mission launched in 1989, Mather designed an instrument that measured the spectrum of cosmic microwave background radiation - the residual traces of the original Big Bang.

"I think the subject that excites me and excites a great many people is the idea of finding out how we actually got here," Mather said to about 100 listeners. "It's a rather long, impressive story and there are many possible variations on this theme."

The Big Bang theory states that about 15 billion years ago, all matter and energy in the universe was compressed into an incredibly dense, super-heated mass roughly the size of a football that exploded and sent material rushing violently outward in all directions.

Mather said the first stars and galaxies were born in a distant, receding area of the cosmos that have been dated to just over a billion years after the Big Bang.

Scientists call this primordial region of the universe the Cosmic Dark Ages - a largely unknown frontier that lies beyond the range of telescopes.

Although it has many strengths, Mather said the Hubble Space Telescope isn't designed to perform the types of observations scientists need to better understand that portion of the universe.

Mather and his fellow astronomers hope to pierce the depths of this ancient celestial realm in the next decade with a new kind of orbiting eye called the Next Generation Space Telescope.

Mather is the principal study scientist for the instrument he says will bridge the gap between what was learned from the Cosmic Background Explorer, and what has been revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

"The Next Generation Space Telescope will probe the era when stars and galaxies began to form as well as the present-day universe," Mather said.

Tentatively planned for deployment beyond Earth's orbit in 2007, the successor to the Hubble is now in the early design stages.

NASA in July issued technology development contracts to four institutions, two for the overall telescope design and two for its primary mirror systems.

Under the new contracts, the UA's Steward Observatory Mirror Casting Laboratory and Composite Optics Inc. in San Diego each received $5 million from NASA to design, build and test a lightweight 2-meter demonstration mirror for the Next Generation Space Telescope.

"We have the key technology," said UA assistant optical science professor Jim Burge, the principal investigator for the new mirror system under the NASA contract.

The UA's 2-meter demonstration mirror should be completed by the end of this year. It will then be sent to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Burge said if the 2-meter version meets Marshall's standards, a 6-meter mirror will follow in 2004.

"My goal is to make the mirror here," Burge said. "I have visions of this thing up there with a U of A sticker on it."

Once the finished telescope is deployed, scientists will have the means to solve some of the oldest mysteries in the universe.

"In another decade or two we will have a lot of very fascinating things to say about how we got here," Mather said.