SuperBIT (the Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope) was launched from Wanaka, New Zealand.
An image taken by the Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope.Princeton University has collaborated with NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and two universities to launch SuperBIT, a telescope tethered to a balloon that will study the gravitational impact of dark matter on light coming from clusters of galaxies.
Physics professor William Jones, principal investigator of a team of researchers from the university that co-created SuperBIT, said observations taken over the last several decades have shown dark matter makes up “majority of the matter and energy in the universe.” “It also takes absolutely gorgeous pictures of the amazing structures that are out there, but that is sort of a side benefit,” Jones said. “It takes images that are at much higher resolution than can be taken from the ground. We are currently surveying a range of galaxy clusters in multiple colors to help better understand the distribution of dark matter within them.”
“That’s part of the excitement of ballooning. It may not be for several months. That depends on a lot of factors, including the way in which the currents are flowing up in the stratosphere,” Jones said.Jones said university researchers first proposed the idea to build the SuperBIT to NASA in 2013. “Since then, we have been working with our partners to develop a state-of-the-art observatory that has imagining capabilities that are only possible from above the atmosphere,” he said.
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