Keyword: Telescopes

NASA Spinoff: Photonics/Optics
Eye surgery patients on Earth are benefiting from early research on the NASA’s James Webb Telescope’s enormous mirrors.
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Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics
With advanced tech, mirrors can be made with high accuracy.
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Articles: Imaging
With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), mankind’s understanding of the universe — and its origins — will increase exponentially.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The "AOM" performs complex observations with ten observation modes and 175 strategies.
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Briefs: Aerospace
Holographic lenses render visible and infrared starlight into either a focused image or a spectrum.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics

At 3 p.m. on March 5, a gigantic furnace slowly started spinning underneath the stands of Arizona Stadium at the University of Arizona. Fire-engine red, massive in...

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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
NASA's NEID tool delivered its first batch of data on the nearest and best-studied star, our Sun.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The design may enable miniature zoom lenses for drones, cellphones, or night-vision goggles.
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Application Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The Earth Imaging Spectrometer instrument is heading to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The technology could boost quantum computers and other superconducting electronics.
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Application Briefs: Test & Measurement
Once installed at Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will introduce incredible opportunities for astrophysics.
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Technology Leaders: Photonics/Optics
Highly technical glass-ceramic delivers optical precision at nanometer scale.
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Application Briefs: Imaging
NASA and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) recently tested a new way to see the Sun
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NASA Spinoff: Electronics & Computers
Isolators used to control semiconductor manufacturing keep the James Webb Space Telescope steady.
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Articles: Semiconductors & ICs
The characteristics of hybrid drives present a practical solution when a position needs to be detected with high precision
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have been working with HiPERCAM, a high-speed, multicolor camera, which is capable of taking more than 1,000 images per...

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Application Briefs: Test & Measurement

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii Island is surrounded by thousands of miles of thermally stable seas. The 13,796-foot Maunakea mountain summit has no nearby ranges to roil the upper...

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Briefs: Imaging

Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a hybrid telescope antenna system — Teletenna — to deliver high-data-rate communication over great distances. Teletenna has...

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Briefs: Software
Precision Low-Speed Motor Controller

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a method for controlling precise motion of a brushless DC (BLDC) motor using relatively inexpensive components. Precision motors are usually quite expensive and inefficient when operating at slow speeds. Current motors are only capable of operating at...

Application Briefs: Electronics & Computers

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), under construction atop 8,737-foot El Peñón peak in northern Chile, is a partnership project of the National...

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Articles: Propulsion

For six decades, NASA has led the peaceful exploration of space, making discoveries about our planet, our solar system, and our universe. At home, NASA research has made great advances in aviation,...

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Briefs: Imaging

Rice engineers have developed a wide-field microscope thinner than a credit card, small enough to sit on a fingertip and capable of micrometer resolution over a volume of several cubic millimeters.

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Articles: Aerospace

The term Space Imaging covers a wide variety of mission types and technologies.

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Articles: Test & Measurement

It's tough to trust measurements from instruments when you don't have a clear understanding of how their sensitivity and accuracy are derived, and many times infrared cameras fall in this category. In...

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Briefs: Motion Control

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. With a 21-foot diameter, the telescope’s primary mirror is six times larger than the one used by...

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Briefs: Motion Control

Origami has once again inspired engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Besides aesthetic beauty, the Japanese tradition of paper-folding addresses a persistent problem...

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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Electrochemically Enhanced Mechanical Polishing of Optics

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center astrophysicists are developing better instruments to measure high-energy X-rays zipping about space when viewed from above the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists at MSFC adapted a novel method for material removal and super-polishing to the mandrel...

Briefs: Test & Measurement
Wallops Arc-Second Pointer (WASP)

The Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP) is a balloon-borne attitude control system capable of pointing a telescope or instrument with accuracy and stability down to the arc second, or 1/3600 of a degree of angular measurement. When a high-powered telescope is integrated with WASP, it provides a highly precise...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Diffusion-Bonded CVC SiC for Large UVOIR Telescope Mirrors and Structures

In 2012, the National Research Council called for a new generation of astronomical telescopes to enable discovery of habitable planets, facilitate advances in solar physics, and enable the study of faint structures around bright objects by developing high-contrast imaging...