Astro-comb

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An Astro-comb is a new observational tool in astronomy which promises to increase the performance of existing spectrographs by nearly a hundred-fold. The first astro-comb will be installed in 2009 or 2010 on the William Herschel Telescope on the Canary Islands. The device was developed by a team led Chih-Hao Li of Harvard University.

The astro-comb uses a pulsed laser to filter starlight before feeding the signal into a spectrograph. It has the potential to revolutionise astrophysical spectroscopy. The increased sensitivity could aid in the search for extrasolar Earth like planets.

[edit] See also

• Comb filter
• Frequency comb

[edit] References

• 'Astro-comb' helps search for Goldilocks planet Physorg.com , April 02, 2008. Accessed April 02, 2008.
• Astro-combing for Planets Astro Biology Magazine, April 09, 2008. Accessed April 11, 2008.
• Pulses to Find Planets Astro Biology Magazine, May 11, 2008. Accessed May 15, 2008. Based on a National Institute of Standards and Technology news release.