24-armed giant to probe early lives of galaxies: KMOS successfully installed on Very Large Telescope
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - 07:01
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org)—A powerful new instrument called KMOS has just been successfully tested on ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. KMOS is unique as it will be able to observe not just one, but 24 objects at the same time in infrared light and study the structure simultaneously within each one. It will provide crucial data to help understand how galaxies grew and evolved in the early Universe—and provide it much faster than has been possible up to now. KMOS was built by a consortium of universities and institutes in the United Kingdom and Germany in collaboration with ESO.