The National Science Foundation and the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) have awarded a major contract to the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy to build the Cryogenic Near Infrared Spectropolarimeter (CryoNIRSP) for the new solar telescope, which is now under construction on Haleakalā.
This complex $5 million instrument will allow astronomers to measure the solar magnetism beyond the sun in order to understand how that energy interacts with Earth’s space environment. It will be built at the UH Advanced Technology Research Center on Maui and will be completed in time for first-light observations with DKIST in 2019.
The CryoNIRSP team on Maui is led by Principal Investigator Jeffrey Kuhn, Project Manager Tim Bond and Instrument Scientist Andre Fehlmann.
“The CryoNIRSP instrument will be one of the largest astronomical instruments the Institute for Astronomy has built. It will provide the international community with a detector that brings nighttime sensitivity for observing the relatively faint outer atmosphere of the sun to the world’s largest daytime telescope,” said Kuhn.
“It is the sun’s magnetism that causes most of the sun’s influence on Earth. We know it controls the explosive energy release from the sun that damages our technology and the sun’s brightness variability that affects our climate,” added Kuhn.
DKIST was formerly known as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope. It was renamed in honor of the late Senator Daniel K. Inouye in December 2013.
—An Institute for Astronomy news release
—By Louise Good
