[meteorite-list] Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Receives $14.2 Million NSF Award

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Sep 2 20:54:09 2005
Message-ID: <200509030053.j830r5v21375_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

LARGE SYNOPTIC SURVEY TELESCOPE RECEIVES $14.2 MILLION
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT AWARD
(Forwarded from the LSST Corp., by UA Office of University Communications)
September 2, 2005

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Contact information listed at end of release
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The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope has received the first year of a
four-year, $14.2 million award with the National Science Foundation to
design and develop a world-class 8.4-meter (27-foot) telescope scheduled for
completion in 2012.

 This award will allow engineers and scientists to complete design work
already underway so that the LSST can begin construction in 2009. This
unique system for surveying the heavens is made possible by advances in
several technologies including:
    o Large optics fabrication to create the telescope's distinctive
3-mirror design which includes a convex 4-meter secondary mirror, the size
of many primary mirrors on today's large research telescopes.
    o Data management systems to process and catalog the 30 terabytes of
data generated nightly, the equivalent of 7,000 DVDs.
    o New detectors needed to build LSST's 3-billion-pixel digital
camera, the largest ever created.

 The LSST will image an area of the sky roughly 50 times that of the full
moon every 15 seconds, opening a movie-like window on objects that change or
move on rapid time scales. Such objects include supernovae explosions which
can be seen halfway across the universe, nearby asteroids which might
potentially strike Earth, and faint objects in the outer solar system far
beyond Pluto. Using the light-bending gravity of dark matter, the LSST will
chart the history of the expansion of the universe and probe the mysterious
nature of dark energy.

 The LSST data will be "open" to the public and scientists around the world
-- anyone with a web browser will be able to access the images and other
data produced by the LSST. "The LSST is a public-private partnership and
will offer a 'New Sky' available to everyone," said LSST DIrector J. Anthony
Tyson of the University of California, Davis. "Curious minds of all ages
will be able to ask new questions of LSST's public database and zoom into a
color movie of the deep universe."

 The LSST Corporation awarded a $2.3 million contract to the University of
Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Lab in January, 2005, to purchase the
glass and begin engineering work for the LSST?s 8.4-meter diameter main
mirror. Although the final site for LSST has not been decided, the telescope
will be placed in one of three candidate locations -- Las Campanas, Chile;
Cerro Pachon, Chile; or San Pedro Martir, Baja California, Mexico.

 The LSST has been identified as a national scientific priority in reports
by several National Academy of Sciences and federal agency advisory
committees. This judgment is based upon the LSST's ability to address some
of the most pressing open questions in astronomy and fundamental physics,
while driving advances in data-intensive science and computing. The National
Academy of Sciences "Quarks-to-Cosmos" report recommended the LSST as an
incisive probe of the nature of dark energy. The LSST will open a new
frontier in addressing time variable phenomena in astronomy, according to a
May 2000 academy report "Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium."

 In 2003, The University of Arizona, the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory, Research Corporation and the University of Washington formed
the LSST Corporation, a non-profit 501(c)3 Arizona corporation, with
headquarters in Tucson, Ariz. Membership has expanded to include Brookhaven
National Laboratory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Johns
Hopkins University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center, Stanford University, University of California at Davis
and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 More information and recent LSST graphics are online at http://www.lsst.org
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Science Contact Information
 J. Anthony Tyson, LSST director
 530-752-3830 tyson_at_lsst.org

 Donald Sweeney, LSST project manager
 520-881-2626 sweeney_at_lsst.org

 Philip A. Pinto, UA Steward Observatory
 520-621-8678 ppinto_at_as.arizona.edu

Media Contact Information
 Suzanne Jacoby, LSST Corp
 520-881-2626 sjacoby_at_lsst.org
Received on Fri 02 Sep 2005 08:53:04 PM PDT