I think I made the lot of the sub-mm astronomer, working extremely hard just to identify blobs, sound pretty thankless earlier today. Strangely, I managed to do so without even complaining that the worst thing about using these short-wavelength radio waves is that most of them are absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere so unless you’re high up, you might as well not bother.
One solution is to go as high as you can; I’m in favour of this because it means I get to go to Hawaii or Spain, but an international collaboration of astronomers has a much better idea.
BLAST hangs from balloon.
The BLAST collaboration have been flying their satellite underneath a balloon, getting high above most of that pesky atmospheric water. I’ve just come from a talk which detailed their results on a set of galaxies, but Wednesday night offers a chance for you to ride along with the BLAST team. BBC4’s Storyville thread will be featuring an excellent documentary about the project at 10pm GMT.
I was lucky enough to see a preview disk, and it’s brilliant, one of the best scientific documentaries I’ve seen for a long while. Watch it (there’s a list of opportunities here for those of you not in the UK) and feel even more amazed at the lengths sub-mm astronomers are driven to.
Update : Watch the trailer!
Hat tip : Andrew Jaffe for reminding me to post about Blast! the movie.
Astronomy Cast - Having a BLAST on January 6, 2009
[...] Update : View the trailer for BLAST the movie by following the link to chrislintott.net. [...]
madge on January 18, 2009
I agree. This was the best scientific programme documenting a mission I have ever seen. I loved that there was no narration just the scientists own comments and reactions. It really showed the nuts and bolts of this kind of research. The rollercoaster ride of ups and downs and the dedication of the team. Fascinating stuff. Congratulations to everyone involved.
David.R.Gilson on January 20, 2009
Movie Review: BLAST The Movie…
BLAST at the edge of our universe.
A first for this blog, a movie review, again on the theme of the International Year of Astronomy. BLAST The Movie tells the the tail of an intrepid team of scientists hoping to travel back in time … on a balloon…