Warm Light, Cool Place
NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, and the island of Maui, from a secondary peak on Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific.
Maui, of course, is very cool. The IRTF is chilled below 4ºK with liquid Helium to capture infrared images uncontaminated by thermal noise. The telescope is not quite the coldest place in the Universe, which includes vast regions of intergalactic space at 3ºK due to the Cosmic Microwave Background, and a lab at MIT that uses sophisticated techniques to get down to a small fraction of 1ºK, Still, very cool. And, sitting on top of the the geologic hotspot that forms the Big Island of Hawaii at an altitude of 14,000ft is also just about the coolest place one can be on Earth, even without the snow and the bone-chilling air.
The 13 observatories on Mauna Kea, each funded by multi-national consortia, offer research time to astronomers from all over the world. The absolute peak of the mountain is reserved as a sacred space for indigenous people.
Explore! No.116 June 13, 2025
Warm Light, Cool Place
NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, and the island of Maui, from a secondary peak on Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific.
Maui, of course, is very cool. The IRTF is chilled below 4ºK with liquid Helium to capture infrared images uncontaminated by thermal noise. The telescope is not quite the coldest place in the Universe, which includes vast regions of intergalactic space at 3ºK due to the Cosmic Microwave Background, and a lab at MIT that uses sophisticated techniques to get down to a small fraction of 1ºK, Still, very cool. And, sitting on top of the the geologic hotspot that forms the Big Island of Hawaii at an altitude of 14,000ft is also just about the coolest place one can be on Earth, even without the snow and the bone-chilling air.
The 13 observatories on Mauna Kea, each funded by multi-national consortia, offer research time to astronomers from all over the world. The absolute peak of the mountain is reserved as a sacred space for indigenous people.
Explore! No.116 June 13, 2025