Quasars are among the most luminous and powerful objects in the Universe, powered by the accretion of matter onto supermassive black holes that reside at the centers of galaxies. While these amazing objects have been studied in depth since the 1960's, a large fraction of the quasar population has long been "missing", hidden by an obscuring screen of gas and dust.
[more]A telescope mounted on a lighter-than-air platform (balloon) at an altitude above 60,000 ft would be above all clouds and weather and would offer imaging quality nearly on par with spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope. We are part of a group of Caltech and JPL scientists and engineers investigating the possibility of building a high-altitude, long duration vehicle platform for atmospheric and astronomy that would offer a new, much lower-cost access to near-space conditions. FACULTY CONTACT: Robert Fesen
[more]Some types of stars end their lives in highly energetic explosions known as supernovae. Over the past 75 years, astronomers have discovered nearly three hundred remnants of supernovae in our Milky Way galaxy, and over a 1000 remnants in several neighboring galaxies. Many key properties of supernova remnants depend on knowing the remnant's distance from us, a quantity that is hard to accurately measure.
[more]Stars around 10 times or more massive than our Sun end their lives when they run out of light elements to convert into heavier elements thus making energy. When they run out of such nuclear fuel, the star's central regions collapse under the weight of the layers above, crushing the gas forming a neutron star which ironically releases more energy than the star produced during its entire lifetime. Such stellar deaths are seen as supernova outbursts.
[more]This project is to develop a long duration, high-altitude LTA platform optimized to use solar heating to generate lift and intended to loft small payloads in the range of 5–20 kg mass. The envisioned platform is a hybrid system building upon the well-established zero-pressure balloon technology employed by NASA but adding a solar energy capture and containment element to increase the lifting capability during daylight hours. The objective is to demonstrate the utility of solar heating for such a concept.
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