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FROM A NASA
HQ PRESS
RELEASE
 June 8, 1999: Scientists will soon have a new
tool to search for the "fossil record" of the Big Bang
and uncover clues about the evolution of the universe. Scheduled
to launch June 23, NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) will observe nearby planets and the farthest reaches of
the universe and will provide a detailed picture of the immense
structure of our own Milky Way galaxy.
Right -- Lower
left corner: Intense ultraviolet radiation from newly formed
stars eats away at a nearby star forming cloud in the southern
Milky Way. Center:
Ultraviolet images of the Small Magellanic Cloud highlight concentrations
of hot, newly formed stars and reveal the progress of recent
star formation in that nearby irregular galaxy. Upper
right corner: Stellar UV radiation delineates the spiral
arms of a distant galaxy. UV pictures such as these must be taken
above the Earth's absorbing atmosphere. The FUSE spacecraft,
scheduled for launch later this month, will examine UV radiation
from the cosmos to probe the mechanics of star formation and
study the evolution of the Universe.
The FUSE mission's primary scientific focus will be the study
of hydrogen and deuterium (a different form of hydrogen), which
were created shortly after the Big Bang. With this information,
astronomers in effect will be able to look back in time at the
infant universe.
By examining these earliest relics of the birth of the universe,
astronomers hope to better understand the processes that led
to the formation and evolution of stars, including our solar
system. Ultimately, scientists hope data from FUSE will allow
them to make a huge leap of understanding about how the primordial
elements were created and have been distributed since the beginning
of time.
"We think that as stars age deuterium is destroyed,"
said NASA's Dr. George Sonneborn, Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD, the FUSE project scientist. "Mapping deuterium
throughout the Milky Way will give us a better understanding
of how elements are mixed, distributed and destroyed."
"The big questions are these: Do we understand
the origins of the universe, and do we understand how galaxies
evolve?" said Dr. Kenneth Sembach, a FUSE science team member
from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. "Because
FUSE can observe ultraviolet light that other telescopes can't,
we can test in unique ways how deuterium and other elements are
circulated within galaxies. That in turn may test the limits
of the Big Bang theory."
Among the cosmic questions FUSE will tackle are:
- What were conditions like in the first few minutes after
the Big Bang? Will studying the "fossil remnant" deuterium
change current theories of the Big Bang?
- How are the elements dispersed throughout galaxies, and how
does this affect the way galaxies evolve?
- What are the properties of the interstellar gas clouds out
of which stars and planets form?
- Does the Milky Way have a vast galactic fountain that gives
birth to stars, spews hot gas, circulates elements and churns
out cosmic material over and over?
FUSE was developed for NASA by Johns Hopkins, which has
the primary responsibility for all aspects of the project. NASA
is responsible for the launch. FUSE is the first NASA mission
of this scope that has been developed and operated entirely by
a university. Dr. Warren Moos, Professor of Physics and Astronomy
at Johns Hopkins, is Principal Investigator for FUSE.
The 3,000-pound FUSE satellite consists of two sections: the
spacecraft and the science instrument. The spacecraft, built
by Orbital Sciences Corp., Germantown, MD, contains all elements
necessary for powering and pointing the satellite. The spacecraft
and the science instrument each have their own computers, which
coordinate the activities of the satellite.
 Right:
This picture, from early April 1999, shows the FUSE satellite
shortly after arrival at NASA/KSC for final pre-launch processing.
FUSE was shipped by special truck from NASA/Goddard to Hangar
AE at NASA/KSC, where it underwent final testing and verification
(Photo: NASA)
FUSE will be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station, FL, aboard
a Boeing Delta II rocket into a circular orbit 477 miles (768
kilometers) above Earth, and will orbit about every 100 minutes.
The satellite must operate on its own most of the time, moving
from target to target, identifying star fields, centering objects
in the spectrograph apertures and performing the observations.
The three-year FUSE mission costs $204 million.
The FUSE science instrument, built by Johns Hopkins, consists
of telescope mirrors, a spectrograph, which breaks ultraviolet
light into its component colors for study, and an electronic
guide camera. Johns Hopkins built the FUSE instrument in collaboration
with the Canadian Space Agency, which provided the camera; the
French Space Agency, which provided a component of the spectrograph;
the University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of California,
Berkeley; and Swales Aerospace, Beltsville, MD. The FUSE mission
and science control center is located on the Johns Hopkins Homewood
Campus, Baltimore, with support from Interface and Controls Systems
and AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp., both of Columbia,
MD. The Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD manages FUSE,
one of the first missions in NASA's Origins program, for NASA's
Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. |
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