Final design for new VLT instrument CUBES completed

The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES), a future instrument for ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), has successfully passed its Final Design Review. With ESO giving the go-ahead to manufacture the instrument, the VLT is one step closer to acquiring a dedicated ultraviolet eye on the sky. CUBES will search for water in the asteroid belt and explore the ultraviolet cosmic background, among other science cases.

ESO has now approved the construction of CUBES, a ground-based spectrograph capable of dedicated observations at ultraviolet or UV radiation at 300-400 nm, a region of the light spectrum never before explored with such high sensitivity with large telescopes. Observing in the ultraviolet from the ground is incredibly difficult due to the Earth’s atmosphere blocking most of the photons in this range of light, while space telescopes are typically too small to be able to see far-away and faint objects in this wavelength range. This makes CUBES a highly anticipated and revolutionary instrument.

With the green light for manufacturing, the CUBES consortium — led by INAF, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics — will soon begin construction. The instrument is expected to see first light later this decade, when it will be installed on one of the VLT’s Unit Telescopes.

With CUBES, astronomers will be able to explore the faintest objects in our Solar System, including asteroids and comets, in the ultraviolet, finding out about their composition. Comets are the leftover remnants of our Solar System, and by studying them researchers can gain a better understanding of our own beginnings. In our galaxy, CUBES will help astronomers determine the abundance of key elements in stars’ atmospheres with unprecedented accuracy while, in the extragalactic cosmos, it will help unravel and study the normal (baryonic) matter expected in the gas surrounding galaxies. Furthermore, CUBES is ideally suited to study the ultraviolet cosmic background, a diffuse radiation that permeates the space between galaxies and influences how stars form.

More Information

The CUBES consortium consists of:

• Italy: INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, and Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte;
• UK: UK Astronomy Technology Centre (Science and Technology Facilities Council); Durham University Centre for Advanced Instrumentation;
• Germany: Landessternwarte, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg;
• Brazil: USP – Institute for Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Science; Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica;
• Poland: Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center;
• Slovenia: University of Ljubljana, University of Nova Gorica;
• ESO

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory