■Nathan Shiga: January 28

Tokyo University has completed building the world’s top-level infrared telescope for installation at its Atacama Observatory n Chile, it was reported January 28. The observatory is the highest in the world in altitude (5640 meters) and the new super telescope is expected to boost its capacity in search for new life in space.

The super telescope is 15 meters long and 6.5 meters in diameter with a resolution way over that of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Whereas regular telescopes capable of catching invisible rays “invisible” to human eyes are good at observing the sun and other fixed stars in higher-temperature zones, infrared telescopes are fit for observing planets in low-temperature zones.

Prof. Takashi Miyata of Institute of Astronomy, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo boasts:

“This telescope should show us the entire process of the formation of planets. That should, in turn, tell us how we ourselves ever came into being – all the riddles, one at a time.”

The project of building the Atacama Observatory kicked off in 1998 at the peak of Mt. Chajnantor, Chile, and in 2009 a mini-telescope was installed and marked a Guinness world record for the highest elevation. Oxygen concentration is half the level ground up there and the researchers undergo routine work with oxygen cylinders on.

The arrival of a new super telescope is yet another evidence of Japan’s advanced optic technology.

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