Posts Tagged Astronomy
Friday Science Video: The Known Universe
Posted by Brad in Friday Science Video on 18 December 2009
This sweet video from the American Museum of Natural History takes you from the Himalayas out through the Solar System and into the very distant reaches of space, eventually past the edge of the known universe.
I’ve seen something very similar to this at the Imiloa Planetarium, but judging from their schedule it looks like they don’t show it to the public. Very unfortunate, because this is incredible on the big planetarium screen in 3-D.
UKIRT Ain’t Dead Yet!
Doom and gloom notwithstanding, UKIRT isn’t shut down yet. While it’s true that its lifespan is now measured in months instead of years, the staff of UKIRT and JAC continue to provide the excellent support our observers have come to know and expect.
Last night we took over 100 gigabytes of data. While this may sound like a lot, it isn’t by UKIRT’s standards, as the night was shortened due to illness. On a good night UKIRT takes over 200 gigabytes of data. On my bookcase I have 67 LTO-3 tapes, each of which holds about 650GB of WFCAM data. That’s over 43 terabytes of data, and that’s only since September 2008!
Last night we looked at all kinds of different things, from very low mass stars (T dwarfs), a galaxy cluster, a “hot Jupiter” orbiting another star, and another go-around of the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey. There’s a lot of science left to do, and we’re going to get it done, funding cuts be damned!
The Death of UKIRT
Some say that now is not the time to invest, but the bottom line is that the downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future. And so we will not allow science to become a victim of the recession – but rather focus on developing it as a key element of our path to recovery.
From 2010-11… a 10% reduction in support for future exploitation grants and a managed cessation of lower priority areas, 25% reduction in the number of new studentships and Fellowships…
…the programme includes the managed withdrawal from a number of projects and programmes including the Gemini telescopes, the NLS, and UKIRT.
- UK Science & Technologies Facility Council, December 15, 2009
The Joint Astronomy Centre, for whom I’ve been working for the past eight years, runs two telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The JAC is funded mostly by the UK’s Science & Technology Facilities Council. STFC funds 100% of UKIRT and 55% of JCMT (the other 45% is funded by Canada at 25% and the Netherlands at 20%).
The STFC has had a rather extreme funding crisis over the past couple of years, which has lead to many program prioritizations and studies and cuts. They had put off the majority of the cuts until now, as the funding crisis has come to a head. They need to somehow save £40 million for the 2010-2011 financial year.
They released their Science Programme Prioritisation today. Amongst the press release nonsense was a line about UKIRT:
the programme includes the managed withdrawal from… UKIRT.
There is no note about a timescale, but friends on the inside said STFC had initially stated a pullout date of April 2010 and have since backpedaled.
Obviously this comes as a huge blow to the Joint Astronomy Centre. If UKIRT is closed permanently and removed from Mauna Kea, numerous staff will lose their jobs. UK astronomers will lose access to one of the best infrared telescopes in the world. Hawaii’s economy will take a hit as staff members will likely leave the island, and astronomers from around the world will stop coming to Hawaii for observing runs, spending money while here.
This will probably not save STFC very much money as UKIRT’s budget had already been slashed to roughly £1 million per year, and STFC would have to pay a shedload of money to have UKIRT removed from Mauna Kea. Agreements in place state that the site would have to be restored to a pristine condition. Also, because the JAC runs two telescopes, a high number of staff support both telescopes. This staff would largely remain in place, which would increase the budget of JCMT by about 30%. This cost would undoubtedly be borne by STFC, as the two partner countries would most likely balk at having to clean up STFC’s mess for them.
It’s a decision that makes no scientific sense and makes very little financial sense. Then again, when have we ever expected anything else from STFC?
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