UVEX Mission Approved by NASA To Explore Ultraviolet Sky, Allows Scientists To Probe Deeper Into the History of Galaxies and Stars

In recent years, astronomers have discovered significant breakthroughs from the data gathered by James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope. Before the end of the decade, NASA plans to launch another telescope which will specialize in a different wavelength.

New Device to Study Ultraviolet Sky

As humans explore the unknown regions of space, they will need a tool that will provide more insights into the formation of galaxies and stars. As a response to this, a new space telescope is set to launch in 2030 as part of NASA's next Astrophysics Medium-Class Explorer mission.

Dubbed as Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX), the new device is designed to conduct a comprehensive highly-sensitive survey of the entire sky. It will be led by Anna Y. Q. Ho and Shrinivas R. Kulkarni from Cornell University.

As UVEX quickly points toward sources of ultraviolet light in the universe, it can capture the explosions that follow bursts of gravitational waves that resulted from the merging of neutron stars. It can also carry an ultraviolet spectrograph for studying stellar explosions and massive stars.

The advanced features of UVEX will help astronomers understand the nature of both nearby and distant galaxies, and offer follow up on dynamic events in the changing cosmos. As the mission brings key capabilities in near-and far-ultraviolet light to the current fleet of space telescopes, it can also provide a collection of survey data which will open new avenues in exploring the secrets of the universe.

UVEX's ultraviolet survey will complement data from other space missions that conduct wide surveys. These include the Euclid mission led by the European Space Agency, and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope which is set to launch by May 2027. Through their collaboration, these missions will help in creating a modern, multi-wavelength map of the universe.

Mark Clampin, director of NASA Headquarters Astrophysics Division, believes that with the innovative new UVEX mission joining their portfolio, their team will gain a significant legacy archive of data which will have a lasting value to the scientific community. The new telescope has the potential to study the fleeting changes in the cosmos which remain to be one of the major priorities in astrophysics.

How Does Ultraviolet Telescopes Work?

Ultraviolet telescopes are observation devices that are used to explore the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, a region between the portion seen as visible light and the area occupied by X-rays.

Ultraviolet radiation has wavelengths of about 400 nanometers on the visible-light side and about 10 nanometers on the X-ray side. The ozone layer in the Earth's atmosphere blocks all wavelengths of light that are shorter than 300 nanometer, preventing them from reaching ground-based telescopes. Since the ozone layer is located at an altitude of 12-25 miles (20-40 kilometers), astronomers resort to rockets and satellites in order to make observations from above it.

Just like X-ray telescopes, ultraviolet telescopes need to be placed above the Earth's atmosphere in order to work effectively. They use mirror technology which is about the same as that of visible light telescopes, but their detectors are specially built to be sensitive to ultraviolet light.