Breakthrough laser technique to sharpen telescopes' focus

by Rich Bowden - Sep 4 2008, 23:26

Astronomers will use a Nobel prize-winning technique to improve the precision of telescopes, allowing them to view distant stars and galaxies better than ever before.

Photo: Telescope observatory at Parkes, NSW. Credit: John Sarkissian/CSIRO

Using a newly-developed "laser technology comb", a team of international researchers has shown how astronomical telescopes can be calibrated to allow astronomers to measure the spectral features of distant stars and galaxies with extreme precision."It looks as if we are on the way to fulfil the astronomer's dream of having a very precise calibration source for their spectrograph," said Theodor Hänsch, Nobel Prize winner for co-inventing the technique, in a Swinburne University of Technology release.Hänsch was one of a team of researchers that demonstrated in a related Science magazine article how the comb could be used to calibrate telescopes using high-energy laser beams.Swinburne University's Dr. Michael Murphy, who was also part of the research team, likens the frequency comb's teeth to the markers on a metre-long ruler."Previously, astronomers would have had a marker about every ten centimetres. And we didn't even know the exact position of those markers, so our measurements were a bit uncertain," he said. "When you use a frequency comb, it's like having instead a very fine density of markings - every millimetre in fact. We also know the exact location of those markers, just as accurately as we know the ticking rate of an atomic clock," he added. "So this really is a new standard of precision in astronomy."Murphy also said the new technique will revolutionise astronomy in areas such as the search for planets similar to Earth."In order to find Earth-sized planets orbiting around Sun-like stars, you need to track a star's motion to within a few centimetres per second over many years," he explained. "The frequency comb technique promises to provide this level of accuracy."

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Breakthrough laser technique to sharpen telescopes' focus

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