This document summarizes a study for a proposed deep field infrared observatory near the lunar pole. Some key points:
- The study was led by Roger Angel and involved researchers from several universities exploring the scientific potential of a large liquid mirror telescope on the moon.
- The moon provides advantages over Earth-based or space-based telescopes for infrared astronomy, including a stable platform and potential for very large, cryogenically-cooled mirrors.
- A lunar telescope could achieve unprecedented sensitivity for observing the early universe, detecting the first stars and galaxies beyond what the James Webb Space Telescope will observe.
- Technical challenges include developing a reflective coating for a cryogenic liquid mirror and assessing the impact of
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1. NIAC annual meeting 2006Tuesday October 17, 2006NIAC Phase II StudyA Deep Field Infrared Observatory Near the Lunar
Pole
2. Study team
•Roger Angel University of Arizona
•ErmannoBorraLaval University
•Jim BurgeUniversity of Arizona
•Daniel Eisenstein University of Arizona
•Paul HicksonUniversity of British Columbia
•KiMa University of Houston
•Ken SeddonQueen’s University Belfast
•Suresh SivanandamUniversity of Arizona
•Paul van Susante Colorado School of Mines
•Pete WordenNASA Ames
•Stan DubynMillennium Space systems
•Vince DenoMillennium
•Tomas SvitekMillennium
3. Organization of Phase B Study
•Pete Worden was original PI
•Roger Angel PI since Pete became Ames Director
•Paul van Susante continuing as deputy PI
•Major collaboration with separately funded Canadian team, ErmannoBorra(Laval) and Paul Hickson(UBC)
4. advantages of the moon for astronomy
•Potential for very long lived observatories
•Lifetimes of ~ 50 years rather than ~ 5
•Big stable platform for many telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum
–Good for viewing along spin axis (near ecliptic poles)
•Possibility of huge cryogenic liquid mirrors at poles
•aperture of 20-100 meters diameter and capable of integrations of days to years with Hubble quality imaging
•NASA exploration program could enable large construction
5. Comparison with free space location
•Common advantages with free space:
–No atmospheric aberration or distortion
–Strong radiativecooling possible for infrared spectrum (at poles)
•Unique lunar advantages
–Large permanent platform for many telescopes
–Exploration initiative may result in infrastructure for large telescope assembly and maintenance
–Gravity
•Lunar disadvantage vsL2
–Powered descent needed for surface landing
–dust might be a problem for optics or bearings
–bearings and drives required for pointing and tracking (versus gyros for free space)
6. Liquid mirror telescopes -already operating on Earth6-m liquid mercury telescope in British Columbia (Paul Hickson) Peter KanMichael Desjardins/Action Images Photography
8. 8-m ALPACA for Chile (Advanced Liquid-mirror Probe for Asteroids, Cosmology and Astrophysics) •Wide-field survey telescope•Cerro Tololo, Chile•Columbia, Stony Brook, Oklahoma, UBC •8 m f/1.5 •3-degree field of view•0.3” image quality•240 2kx2k CCDs•1000 sq degrees in 6 bands•AB ~24 /night, 26.5 /year•Supernovae, lensing, LSS, NEOs, TNOs, …
9. Limits on Earth –atmospheric blurring, spiral waves from air limit size, heat from warm mirror
•These are waves raised on the mercury surface by vortices in the boundary layer above the rotating surface
•Onset of turbulence occurs at ~ 0.6 m radius
•These waves have large amplitude and diffract most of the light out of the PSF for large liquid mirrors
Laval 2.5m defocussedimage
10. No limit to size or resolution or cooling on the moon
11. Scientific potential
•Ultra-deep survey of early universe
•formation of the first stars and their assembly into galaxies.
•radiation of the first stars emitted primarily at rest wavelengths from 0.1 –1 μm is red shifted by around a factor 20 to this region.
•zodiacal sky background is lowest in the 2- 5 μm spectral region, allowing for extremely deep images, to be first explored by JWST
12. Galaxy Formation major goal
•Since a liquid mirror telescope must point ~vertically, the interesting targets must be ones that have no closer examples elsewhere on the sky.
–Galaxies at z>0.5: galaxies evolve and so there is no substitute for looking far away.
–Special objects where the best example happens to fall in the field of view, e.g. the Large MagellenicCloud.
13. A Rough History of Galaxies
•First stars (z~20)
•First galaxies (z~15)
•Larger galaxies & reionization(z~10)
•Current frontier (z~6)
•Peak epoch of formation (z~2-3)
•Growth of hot halos (z~1)
•Shut-off and cluster formation (z<0.7)
17. Opportunity
•A liquid mirror telescope on the moon offers the opportunity to go super-deep in the IR.
•This is well matched to the study of very-high redshift galaxies and perhaps even the first stars.
–Must cover down to 1.5 μm or bluer to see Ly alpha dropout.
–Probably need to reach at least
to 4 μm.
–First objects are very faint:
10 picoJyor less in the continuum.
–20-meter telescope could reach early
galaxies 100 times smaller than JWST.
–Should consider spectroscopy
of z>10 "JWST" galaxies (few nanoJy).
18. Why infrared is required –universe opaque below 90 nm wavelength•We'd like to study galaxies in the rest- frame optical and UV, say 0.12–1 micron, but the light from distant galaxies has its wavelength stretched by the expansion of the Universe. •At z>7, all of the galaxy's light is in the IR. –No light passes shortwardof 0.1216(1+z) μm. LabbeLabbeet al. (2006)et
19. Dan Eisenstein tasks
•Gathering the primary science drivers in the various regions of parameter space.
–First stars/galaxies/supernovae.
–Imaging vs. Spectroscopy vs. Narrow-band Imaging
–Beyond objects: can we see fluctuations in the unresolved light from scattered Lyman alpha?
•Paying particular attention to the very high- redshift Universe: first stars and first galaxies.
–Planning to run cosmological hydro simulations to extend work at z~8 up to higher redshift, leveraging in- house tools and expertise.
–Study gas aggregation, star formation, and cosmic web as a function of model parameters.
20. IR limit vsmirror temperature
Maximum wavelength for which observations will be limited by zodiacal sky background, as a function of mirror surface temperature. Emissivityof 1% by the spinning liquid mirror is assumedSky background includes both thermal emission and sunlight scattered from zodiacal particles. T (K)λmax (μm) 8011.01008.01205.81404.71604.01803.52003.1Target temperature ≤150K
21. Need for very large aperture
•Lunar telescope would go to the next level of sensitivity, beyond HST and JWST
•JWST will be 6.5 m diameter D, cooled infrared telescope at L2, with longest integrations of t~ 1 month
•Lunar telescope should have D > 20 m and integrate for many years
•Sensitivity as D2√t: compared to JWST
–20 m for 1 year will be 30 times more sensitive
–100 m would be 1000 times more sensitive
–Virtually impossible by rigid mirror technology
23. Designs of increasing size
Mirror Diameter (m)
2
20
100
Mirror area (m2)
3
300
7600
Primary mass (tons)
1
50
Total mass (tons)
0.5
3
100
Field
3.1°annulus
15’
3’
Diffraction limit @ 1mm
0.1 “
0.01”
0.002”
Pixels @ 2mm (Nyquist)
18,000/°
45,000
45,000
24. Cold reflective liquid surface?
•Critical issue
•Mercury frozen at 150K
•Need to evaporate metal on cryogenic dielectric liquid
•Will this work?
25. Early try -mirror surface of silver on polypropylene glycol deposited by Borra
26. Ag on PPG-PEG-PPG
•Increasing deposition speed increases reflectivity in near IR (200 to 2200 nm)
27. ionic liquids -Prof Ken Seddon
•Ionic fluids preferred
–Low vapor pressure
–Low melting T < -100 C
•Very active field of research
–Like liquid salt, except anions and cationsbig and organic
–Application for vapor free solvents in chemical manufacture (Change physical properties by changing anions and cations: huge number of possible liquids (Billions!)
28. Take silver well
Borraresults for Ag on ECOENG212
Best reflectivity in near IR for Agech1-exp1-0709050102030405060708090100 2200210020001900180017001600150014001300120011001000900800700600500400300200 Longueurs d'ondes en nm %R pos2
30. Superconducting bearing-not disturbed by dust-model with spinning liquid mirror on a superconducting bearing by Professor Ma. (a) shows the bearing, with a nitrogen-cooled YBCO superconductor in the upper cup, and a neodymium magnet in the
inverted cup below. The gap is ~ 3 mm. Hanging on 3 strings below
(b) is a 20 cm spinning dish of black soy sauce with ~ 8” focal length.
The lettering is the reflection of a screen above
32. Superconducting bearing design
(Prof KiMa)
model
Simple scale up
Optimized design
Mirror diameter
0.2 m
20 m
mirror mass
0.18 kg
1000 kg
Mirror weight
0.18 kgF
167 kgF
YBCO diameter
25 mm
0.75 m
1 m
YBCO thickness
12 mm
0.36 m
0.025 m
superconductor mass
0.055 kg
1.53 tons
0.2 tons
Total bearing mass
0.085 kg
2.4 tons
0.3 tons
33. Will dust be a problem?
•Dust levitated ~ 1 meter by electrostatic force, well established from surface measurements
•Dust to ~ 10 km?
–Atmospheric glow seen occasionally from Apollo command module
–Not confirmed by Clementine
35. Best seen with back illumination -Small angle scattering illustrated by Monet
36. Sivanandamplanning ground- based adaptive optics imaging
•Require guide star for wavefront measurements. Use high illuminated peaks on the dark side
•Image small 30” region above the polar surface in the 1.6 micron band and of the polar region itself in 5 micron band.
•100s of meter resolution imaging
•Will attempt this measurement later this year
8.66 micron image of Moon [Lawson et al. 2003]
37. Location –near lunar pole
•Zenith view fixed on sky along spin axis
•Deep integration with no steering
•Strong radiativecooling for high infrared sensitivity possible
–Use cylindrical radiation shield
–Shields from sun always on horizon
38. Comparison of N and S ecliptic polesSchmidt survey photographic R-band images: Left –South Pole view; Right –North Pole view. Rlimit= 21; FWHM = 2”; FOV = 12’×12’.
39. Detailed images of a field (30”×30” in size) close to the South ecliptic pole. Left: Schmidt survey image of field. Right: HST image of the same field, with stars resolved out
at limit of V=26.
40. Effect of location on sky access for a zenith- pointed telescope with 0.2°field, 18 yr exposureLeft–at the pole, annulus 3.1 °diameter centered on the ecliptic pole, 5 months on any one spot. Center–0.2°from the pole, the field sweeps ½ °annulus each month, covering any one spot every month for a year Right–1.55°from the pole. Each month the field sweeps a 3.1° annulus, covering any spot for about 15 hours. Ecliptic pole seen each month, for total integration of 5 months over 18 years.
41. Summertime illumination map generated from Clementine data of the North Pole
The crater located near the 90°E meridian is the encircled crater shown in the SMART- 1 image. scale bar on the left is 15 km in length
42. SMART-1 AMIE image of N pole in mid-winter
the nearest illuminated crater is 15 km distant with 100%
summer illumination. N pole
43. Possible sequence
•Micro site survey
•1.7 m robotic wide field survey
–Complements Spitzer and JWST
•20 m
–Follow up spectroscopy of JWST candidates
•100 m
–Completely unique
44. Planning a small site survey mission – MilleniumSpace (Tom Svitek)
•Mission objective
–Collect in-situ data to confirm feasibility of large lunar telescopes
–Identify any possible compromises or impacts on seeing conditions (primarily dust)
•Mission constraint
–Lowest possible in-situ dust survey for potential lunar polar telescope site
•Land on polar crater rim that is permanently illuminated
•Nominal mission duration of 1 year (assumes continuous sunlight)
•Payload mass allocation of <10 kg
•Average payload power allocation less than 10 W
45. Lunar Site Survey Lander Payload
•Infrared survey camera ( 2 kg) –Primary mirror <15 cm, passively cooled optics and FPA (~50 K) –3-5 um, zenith viewing, ~90 deg FOV, no moving parts, 30 cm baffle•Visible survey cameras (0.1 kg each) –Full azimuth coverage of horizon w/3 cameras (120 deg FOV each) –IFOV ~1 mrad(?), tolerates continuous solar exposure•Liquid coating test plate (2 kg) –Flat horizontal plate, ~100 cm^2 (needs to leveled after landing?) –Assess quality of coating and gradual degradation due to vacuum and dust–One-time liquid dispenser –Scattered light sensor and optical interferometer (?) –Protected by solar panels top edge at 60 cm (TBR) above ground •Dust detector at 3 azimuth locations levels and varying height above ground (0.2 kg) –Standard space heritage dust detector design (impact-sensing polymer) •Electrostatic potential analyzer (Langmuir probe) (1.5 kg) –Standadtechnique to measure surrounding electrostatic field intentsityas function of sun elevation and azimuth
46. MilleniumSite Survey Lander Configuration
Dust survey payload is integrated on top equipment
shelf
Lander system after separation
from Falcon-1 upper stage
48. Next mission –wide field survey with 2 m class telescope3-mirror design for 1.55ºannular fieldField angle 1.43 –1.67° Encircled energy at 2.5 μm (1.7 m)
49. 1.7 m precursor details
•Diffraction limited resolution
–0.3 arcsec at 2.5 μm
–0.6 arcsec at 5 μm
•3 degree annular field, 14 minute wide
–2 square degrees
–4096 x 0.2 arcsec pixels wide
–30 square degrees covered during 18 yr precession
•18 year mission
–average 2 years integration on typical field point
–~2 weeks on each of 40 differently filtered detectors in ring
–Limiting sensitivity as D2√t, 25x Spitzer in same broad bands (4 of the 40 slots) i.e. 20 nJyat 3.5 μm.
53. Placement of shield lower ring supports
Placement and deployment of telescopic secondary mirror supports
Installation of the superconducting magnetic bearing and housing
54. Install vertical telescopic shield supports and top ring
MLI blankets hang from top ring like a curtain, seal connections
between blankets
27 rolls of blankets on top
55. Extend shield vertical telescopic arms to lift ring and MLI blanketsInstall secondary mirror and extend supports to required position
56. NO MLI blankets shown for viewing purposesAssemble primary mirror support structureInstall coating vapor deposition mechanismAdd MLI blankets from the lower shield support ring to the instrument housing
57. NO MLI shielding shownSpin the primary mirror and test all aspects ‘dry’Spin the primary mirror and add ionic liquid
58. NO MLI shownVapor deposit solid reflective layer on top of ionic liquid while spinning
59. Conclusion
•Excellent scientific potential
•No tall tent polesontechnical side
•20 m class telescope will depend on lunar exploration program
•Could validate program, as Hubble did for Shuttle
65. Flyers randomly located in cloud 6000 km diameter and 100,000 long
•Screen 0.6 m diameter
•Ears stick out 0.1 m
–Memsmirrors for radiation pressure control
–Small cameras, solar cells and computers
•Thickness 5 μm screen, 100 μm ears
•Mass 1.2 g each, 16 trillion required
•Launched in stacks of 800,000 weighing 1 ton, 4 m high
•Each vehicle has its own destackerrobot