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Three UMBC Scientists involved in instrument development for planned Japanese Astronomy SatelliteDrs. Chan, Hamaguchi and Mukai of UMBC's Center for Space Science & Technology (CSST) are members of a team of scientists whose proposal for an instrument to be launched on a planned Japanese astronomy satellite has been selected for funding by NASA. The satellite, currently designated "Astro-H" by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is scheduled to launch in 2013. Astro-H will mainly perform astronomical observations in the X-ray band of the spectrum, a band which probes matter in extreme environments and contains a considerable fraction of the total (photon) energy in the Universe. The scientific objectives for Astro-H include investigations of the nature of dark mater on large scales, explorations onto how galaxies form and evolve, the growth of supermassive black holes, and the non-thermal emission from supernova remnants. The instrument, known as the Soft X-Ray Spectrometer (SXS), will be developed at NASA's Goodard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD, under the leadership of GSFC's Dr. Richard Kelley. The SXS will consist of a grazing-incidence telescope to focus the X-rays onto an array of microcalorimeters. The instrument will produce X-ray spectra with unprecented resolution allowing accurate measurements of spectral features imprinted on the X-ray emission from many types of object. Dr.Kai-Wing Chan will be involved in the development of the X-ray optics. Besides instrument development, Dr Chan also works on Gamma-ray & positron transport in young supernovae and Galactic nucleosynthesis. Drs. Kenji Hamaguchi and Koji Mukai will be involved in the setting up of a US Guest-Observer Facility (GOF) to help US astronomers plan, calibrate and analyse the data once collected. Dr. Hamaguchi works on Young stellar objects, wind-wind interactions in massive stellar binary systems, and astrobiology. Dr. Mukai's research primarily involves X-ray and multiwaveband studies of magnetic CVs, and other interacting binaries. All three UMBC scientists work at NASA/GSFC under the Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology (CRESST) cooperative agreement. The University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) are UMBC's partners in the CRESST consortium. |
