PRIMA News

I’ve been remiss in not passing on significant news that involves former colleagues at Cardiff University and Sussex University, so I thought I would remedy that lapse today. A few weeks ago it was announced that NASA has selected a far-infrared space telescope called PRIMA as the first in a new series of missions to be launched around 2033. The mission now enters a Phase B study. In a nutshell, PRIMA (PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics) is a far-infrared observatory based around a 1.8-m diameter telescope, cryogenically-cooled (to 4.5 K). It includes both a sensitive wideband spectrometer FIRESS, and a multi-band spectrophotometric imager /polarimeter PRIMAger. PRIMA’s sensitivity unlocks the potential of the far-IR waveband to advance astrophysics across a broad range of topics spanning from galaxy and dust evolution in the early universe to the formation of planets and planetary atmospheres. FIRESS offers full-band instantaneous coverage from 24 to 235 μm in two modes. The…