COURTESY PHOTO
Six dish antennas of the Smithsonian Submillimeter Array are currently in place in a valley near the summit of Mauna Kea. Two more will be added next year. The 20-foot-diameter antennas can be moved by a forklift to various pads for different configurations.
HILO >> Astronomers of the Smithsonian Submillimeter Array of dish antennas on Mauna Kea will have new Hilo offices about the end of 2003, shortly after the array itself becomes fully functional, officials said. New observatory will have
offices in HiloAstronomers can study the cosmos
without scaling Mauna KeaBy Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.comThe specialized observatory broke ground for a new Hilo Operations Facility yesterday at the University Park of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where several other observatory headquarters are located.
Observatory Operations Director Antony Schinckel said up to 14 months will be spent in building the two-story, 18,000-square-foot building, which will provide space for 40 staff members. Construction cost will be about $5 million, Schinckel said.
When completed, the array itself, in a small valley near the summit of Mauna Kea, will consist of eight, 20-foot-diameter dish antennas, six funded by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory based in Cambridge, Mass. Two others will be funded by the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, which will have a 15 percent interest in the facility.
The array will study submillimeter waves, a form of radiation, which is less energetic than infrared light but more so than microwaves found in home ovens.
Ironically, microwaves are used in the kitchen to make things hot, but submillimeter waves come from some of the coldest objects in the universe.
The explanation, said Rolf-Peter Kudritzki of the University Institute for Astronomy, which provides space for observatories on Mauna Kea, is that objects in the kitchen get hot by absorbing radiation. Objects in space get cold by releasing radiation.
Among the objects to be studied by submillimeter astronomers will be stars in the very early stages of formation in our Milky Way galaxy, molecules floating in space which could be the building blocks of life, and ancient galaxies from which light has been traveling toward Earth for 13 billion years, Kudritzki said.
Construction of the array started in 1995. It now has six of its eight antennas in place, but only four are functional, Schinckel said.
University Institute for Astronomy
Maunakea Astronomy Education Center
