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17 Jun 2002
European astronomers have made the world's first observation of a distant star with an advanced photon detector.
Astronomers from the UK-based Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) and European Space Agency (ESA) researchers have joined forces to harness the optical powers of a superconducting tunnel junction camera, called "S-Cam". By attaching the camera to the Spain-based William Herschel telescope, the team has measured changes in the intensity and color of the faint binary star system UZ Fornacis.
"This new detector allows us to look at changes in the light from the system over small fractions of a second," said MSSL researcher Mark Cropper. "This is the first time we have been able to study the rapid color [and light] changes at the same time."
Developed at the ESA's Netherlands-based research and technology center two years ago, the S-Cam acts as a sophisticated photon-counting system. The camera's detector contains an array of small tantalum chips, which when cooled within several degrees of absolute zero, can monitor the position, arrival time and energy of photons from distant light sources.
According to Anthony Peacock who led the technology's development at the ESA., the detector is the first instrument to detect the energy of photons and is very efficient, sensitive and fast. Michael Perryman, leader of the astronomical investigation agrees. "We have a very powerful instrument for looking at faint astronomical sources which [pulse] very rapidly," he said.
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