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 Measuring The Cosmos
    
      
  Why NIST Is Going to Space
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A man stands under a large piece of blue equipment on white scaffolding.
NIST's Kent Irwin with SCUBA-2Credit:
          
  NISTTelescope Details

Website

**Location:**

Mauna Kea, Hawaii

**Purpose:**

The telescope’s Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) camera images objects ranging from comets in the Earth's solar system to galaxies at the far ends of the universe. The camera can carry out large-scale surveys of the sky to unprecedented depths. Submillimeter wavelengths of light contain a lot of information about the universe; for instance, light from stars inside young galaxies is trapped in dust clouds and re-emitted in this band.

**NIST’s role:**

The SCUBA-2 camera is made of more than 10,000 NIST sensors. The camera is a collaboration of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, NIST and four British and Canadian universities.

**Significant discoveries:**

SCUBA-2 has imaged thousands of submillimeter galaxies, which are used to understand galaxy evolution and cosmic star formation.

**Other interesting facts:**

SCUBA-2 maps the sky 100-150 times faster than its predecessor camera.

**Operated by:**

The East Asian Observatory

Media

SCUBA-2 sensor array
SCUBA-2 sensor array
  Electronics, Sensors and Physics

    
    Created October 6, 2021, Updated November 3, 2021
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