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Yesterday, the Joint Astronomy Centre received a couple of large boxes. Really large boxes. Really heavy large boxes. What was in them? Bits and pieces of SCUBA-2, an instrument that will revolutionize sub-millimetre astronomy.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope used to have an instrument named SCUBA, or the Sub-millimetre Common-User Bolometer Array. It was amazingly successful, second only to the Hubble Space Telescope for scientific impact. Unfortunately it suffered from problems at the end of its life, and it was retired a couple of years ago, and the JCMT has been without a bolometer array (essentially like a CCD for sub-mm) since.

SCUBA-2’s arrival will change all that. It will re-revolutionize sub-mm astronomy the way SCUBA did back in the late 1990s. SCUBA-2 will be able to map the sky 1000 times faster than SCUBA did. This isn’t just a leap in innovation and scientific impact, it’s a launch. And it’s finally here!

Over the coming weeks I’ll write a few in-depth posts about SCUBA-2. It’s an amazing piece of engineering and technology.