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The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on
Mauna Kea, Hawaii
The JCMT is the largest single-dish telescope in the world dedicated to
detecting submillimetre radiation. Its 15-metre (50-foot) dish looks at
the sky with instruments that tell us about the cold Universe in different
ways. Operating between the infrared and radio waves, it uses some of the
most sensitive and sophisticated instrumentation to detect the coldest
material in the Universe, only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero.
Water vapour in the Earth’s atmosphere intercepts this radiation, making
the high and dry site of Mauna Kea vitally important for the research
performed at the JCMT.
JCMT website:
http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/articles/aboutjcmt/ |
