A team of scientists, headed by UA astronomer J. Roger P. Angel, hopes to settle the question of whether Jupiter-like planets orbit nearby stars by surveying 30 stars within 30 light years by the end of the decade.
Adaptive optics is a technique for correcting atmospheric blurring effects.
It instantly analyzes the changing atmospheric wavefront above the telescope and simultaneously adjusts or warps optic surfaces to correct for that distortion before light is brought to a focus in the telescope. Angel is principal investigator at the CAAO, which was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research last April. Fernando's graduate student, Carina Grittini, has been testing the process's efficacy in removing PCBs. Conventional, but costly and inefficient, remediation systems pump water above ground to remove organics by air stripping or adsorption onto activated carbon. Canadian studies first suggested that elemental iron, though slow to work, could play an important role in removing TCE and other chlorinated organics from contaminated groundwater.