Solar Power to Reboot China's Robotic Antarctica Observatory
Earlier this year, an expedition sponsored by the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute of China, installed the PLATeau
Observatory (PLATO) on a site called Dome A, which sits 4,100 meters
above sea level on the Antarctic plateau. The robotic observatory designed to test the astronomical observing conditions at a remote Antarctic plateau has lost power after 204 days of operation, with hopes that the project may be resuscitated with solar power in the coming weeks, when sunlight returns to the region.
The observatory includes a range of telescopes and meteorological instruments designed to test the sky conditions above Dome A, which boasts months of uninterrupted night during wintertime in the southern hemisphere and is at a high altitude – meaning there is less distortion-inducing atmosphere between the observatory and its celestial targets. The site is also very dry, which is good for astronomy because atmospheric moisture absorbs certain wavelengths of light.
Operating in 24-hour-darkness for nearly the last four months, diesel engines and 4000-litres of jet fuel were used to keep the batteries for PLATO's instruments warm and charged – important since the observatory has been PLATO was designed to run unattended until a re-supply mission brought it more fuel and new instruments in 2009.
Late last week, the observatory's instruments stopped working after
one of the diesel engines developed an exhaust leak. The drop in power
may have made the instrument batteries too cold to hold a charge.
The
sun will rise on the site, however, in roughly two weeks, and team
members hope PLATO's solar panels will be able to kick in and restart
the observatory.
"Hopefully this is just a brief hiatus," says astronomer Craig Kulesa of the University of Arizona in Tuscon. "Hopefully by the time we get to September we'll be able to pick up again where we left off on just solar power."
One instrument, called Pre-HEAT, is designed to measure light at
sub-millimeter wavelengths. Light from this part of the spectrum could
be useful to study phenomena such as star birth. Water vapor in the
atmosphere usually obscures most of this light, but it may be clear in
the Antarctic, where the air is too cold to hold much moisture.
Early results show 70% of one test wavelength this light can pass
through the sky above Dome A. At another station at the South Pole,
which lies some 1200 meters lower in altitude, only 40% of the light
makes it though.
Although the site seems to be promising for sub-millimeter astronomy, it is not yet clear whether it will be good for optical telescopes. That's because a turbulent layer of air hovers over the Antarctic ice that can blur stars and reduce a telescope's power.
At the South Pole, a telescope would need to sit on a 300-meter-high platform to get above the turbulence. Another Antarctic site, Dome C, has only 30 meters of turbulent air above it. But PLATO collaborators hope the layer will be much thinner at Dome A.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14531-robotic-observatory-in-antarctica-shuts-down.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
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