Group picture from the GPI Kick-off meeting (March 2 2007). back row, from left to right: M. Perrin, XXXXX, C. Marois, R. Doyon, M. Shao, J. Graham, G. Marcy, G. Serabyn, L. Palmer, J. Wright, J. Jensen. On the front row, from left to right: F. Marchis, P. Kalas, B. Macintosh

A dozen of scientists from diverse institutions met on March 2 2007 to discuss on the potential of a future Gemini Planet Imager instrument. Each of us described in 10-20 min, scientific studies that could be done with an adaptive optics which provides an excellent imaging quality, high contrast, and spectroscopic and polarimetric modes. Of course, we knew that GPI was going to be built essentially to search and characterize extra-solar planets (“exoplanets”), but adjunct sciences including the study of binary star systems, planets in our solar system, and debris disk around nearby stars were also considered.

Six years later those requirements are still the driver of the GPI instrument and the team grew to a large size of ~60 members even though most of the core members are still here. The role of some of us have changed, some were graduate students when the project started and today are respected researchers or professors in renown institutions. A lot of us moved to new locations, sometimes across the continents, but we kept a tenuous, but real, link with the GPI project. We did not get younger, but we want to believe that we are wiser and smarter and let’s assume, it is true.

In a few months after the instrument will be shipped in Chile to have its first light,  we will then forget those years peppered with meetings and numerous telecons to embrace this magical moment and make the best of this new instrument, but this is another story.

Clear skies,

Franck M.

29 May 2013

 This release is based on a story in the June 2013 issue of Astronomy magazine: http://www.astronomy.com/~/media/Files/PDF/Magazine%20articles/ET-with-infrared-light.pdf

Until recently, one of the ultimate mysteries of the universe — how many civilizations may exist on planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way Galaxy — relied on the possibility of detecting intelligent beings by radio signals. Now a team of astronomers, engineers, and physicists from the University of Hawaii, the University of Freiburg, and elsewhere has proposed a new and powerful technique to search for intelligent life.

Artistic rendering of the Colossus telescope, a 77m wide telescope capable of detecting the near-infrared light resulting from a technologically advanced civilization living on an exoplanet located at 60 light-years. (c) http://www.innovativeoptics.ca/

The revolutionary method is described by four of the team’s astronomers in the June 2013 issue of Astronomy magazine, the world’s largest magazine on the subject, with a print and web readership of half a million each month. The story, “How to Find ET with Infrared Light,” was written by Jeff R. Kuhn of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, Svetlana V. Berdyugina of the University of Freiburg and the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics in Germany, David Halliday of Dynamic Structures, Ltd., in British Columbia, and Caisey Harlingten of the Searchlight Observatory Network in The Grange, Norwich, England.

Rather than looking for radio waves, the team suggests searching for the heat signatures of nearby planets, which requires a giant telescope that could detect infrared radiation directly from an exoplanet, thus revealing the presence of a civilization.

“The energy footprint of life and civilization appears as infrared heat radiation,” says Kuhn, the project’s lead scientist. “A convenient way to describe the strength of this signal is in terms of total stellar power that is incident on the host planet.” The technique arises from the fact that a civilization produces power that adds to the heat on a planet, beyond the heat received from its host star. A large enough telescope, idealized for infrared detection, could survey planets orbiting stars within 60 light-years of the Sun to see whether or not they host civilizations.

 The Colossus Telescope

The quest for direct infrared detection of extraterrestrial civilizations, along with many other research possibilities, has led the team to the funding and building of a giant telescope. Currently planned large infrared telescopes, the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the European Extremely Large Telescope, would not be large enough.

Instead, a telescope (dubbed Colossus) with a primary mirror about 250 feet (77 meters) in diameter could find hundreds of Earth-sized or larger planets in habitable zones, and perhaps dozens of extraterrestrial civilizations, by using a sensitive coronagraph — and the technology to build such an instrument exists.

The international team thus seeks funding to build a 77-m telescope, which would be constructed from revolutionary thin-mirror slumping and polishing technologies developed by the Innovative Optics team. The telescope would consist of approximately sixty 8-m mirror segments, and would operate at a high-altitude site.

Colossus’s field of view would be optimized for star-like sources. It would be the world’s best high-resolution infrared telescope and would excel at the study of stellar surfaces, black holes, and quasars, objects that appear smaller than 1 arcsecond on the sky.

 Innovative Optics, Ltd.

The organization behind the technologies that make Colossus-style telescopes possible is Innovative Optics Ltd. (IO). IO (http://www.innovativeoptics.ca) operates its research and development at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy in Maui, and at the National University of Mexico in Ensenada, Mexico. IO also has developmental operations at the Vancouver, B.C., Canada location of Dynamic Structures Ltd.

For decades, Dynamic Structures Ltd. (http://dynamicstructuresltd.com) has been the leader in both design and construction of the world’s largest telescopes and telescope enclosures. These include the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and enclosure, Hawaii; the Sir Isaac Newton Telescope and enclosure, La Palma, Canary Islands; the Sir William Herschel Telescope and enclosure, La Palma, Canary Islands; both W. M. Keck Observatories, Phase 1 and 2, Mauna Kea, Hawaii; the Owens Valley Radio Observatory and support structures, California; the Gemini 8-meter Telescope Projects in both Hawaii and Chile; and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile.

Dynamic Structures Ltd. has also been retained by the Thirty Meter Telescope Corporation (TMT) to provide a solution for the TMT enclosure. This has just been completed, resulting in the “Calotte” design. This design allows for significantly reducing the mass and size of the telescope’s enclosure compared with conventional carousel and dome-type structures.

Dynamic Structures Ltd. is an investment partner in IO and lends its engineering, fabrication and support infrastructure to IO for a joint effort in creating a revolution in astronomical capabilities.

With manageable fabrication timescales, both optical and mechanical, and cost-effective pricing, IO technologies will enable the realization of telescopes of unprecedented size and capability.

 Media Contact:

Michael Bakich

Senior Editor, Astronomy

+1 262-796-8776

mbakich@astronomy.com

Science Contact:

Caisey Harlingten

Searchlight Observatory Network

+1 778-668-1492

caiseyh@yahoo.com

Threatening clouds over Paranal Observatory

This is unusual to get such dark and threatening clouds above one of the driest place on Earth. But it’s been so for two days and we just hope that no drops of rain will fall down because the Observatory is not made for rain and that’s just more hassle for the staff and of course for the occasional visitors who are not getting their projects done.

Tonight it got worse, the wind is blowing over 20 meters/second (45 miles/hour) and the humidity rose above 50% due to the proximity of the clouds.

In the morning it did look promising though… I really like this metallic light and feeling we get just before sunrise (not much sun today). The horizon was so clear, we could see the snow on the Cordillera a few hundred km away as well as on the 6739m (21,300 ft) Llullaillaco Volcano which is in Argentina.

night is over, clouds are there

But the Observatory routine (and life!) does not stop. The cleaning ladies walk towards the residencia…

Usual morning walk from the “village” to the Residencia, under the unusual clouds.

At night, after a rough day of work taking care of all the instruments and facilities some French engineers play with their “toys for boys”: they fly helicopters in the gym!

Sebastien Poupar flying his helicoper

Pierre Bourget tuning his big helicopter

At the end of the night, the scenery is impressive. Here’s a long exposure shot above the Residencia at 6:00am. we can see the Southern Cross making its way through the moving clouds and the important airglow. The night isn’t completely lost, at least for me!

Entering a cloudy twilight, back to the Residencia!

You can see more photos about the past 48 hours of cloudy Paranal on this Flickr Photo Set.

Roger shoots