InFocus featuring Alexandra Pope (UMass PRIMA Telescope)

From the 22 News Plus Studio, this is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of In Focus. I am your host Patrick Berry. Today we are talking about one of my favorite topics. It's outer space. I love talking about what's happening above our clouds and out in space and between here, the moon and beyond. And I'm very excited today because joining me across the desk from the University of Massachusetts is one of their astronomy professors Dr. Alexandra Pope, Dr. Pope thank you so very much for joining me today i appreciate you uh you coming in for a fun conversation because folks this is not only just a fun conversation for me the thing i enjoy about learning about space if that makes any sense is what some of the local brains in our community are doing to advance what we know about space and She's sitting across the desk from me today because you, a number of people on the campus at UMass, and then a number of people, a number of campuses around the country have put together a satellite. Is that what it will be called? A new space telescope. A new space telescope. Okay. So let's back up a little bit to talk about how did you and the team from UMass get involved in this space telescope? And is this in partnership with NASA? Yes. Yeah. Great question. So first of all, thank you for having me on here. I'm really excited. I also enjoy talking about space any chance I can. We're going to nerd out today. I love it. So where did this all start? I guess I would say I've been working towards this, you know, most of my career. But this specific opportunity with this new telescope, which is called PRIMA, Probe Far Infrared Mission for Astrophysics. We always have to have acronyms in astronomy. That telescope began about five years ago when the National Academies of Science decadal survey in astrophysics came out and recommended that NASA start this new fleet of missions called Probe Explorers in astrophysics. And NASA responded with a call for proposals. And so we I got together with a bunch of my colleagues who were already sort of working in similar areas scientifically and and and became the Prima team, essentially the Prima science team. And so we worked on the first step of the process was coming up with the key science questions that we wanted to answer. And then we designed the telescope to go with that. Is that normal behavior? You the group of scientists sit down and say, OK, what do we want to know? and then how do we figure that out Is that standard procedure? Yeah, usually it's always driven by the science questions, um so you don't just build a telescope and say let's just do some stuff with this, you always have to have some guiding science um questions that you build the telescope around and then it enables a lot more science than just those questions that you've designed it for, so what are the questions you want answers to? So PRIMA is designed to answer three key science questions, three areas. The first area is around understanding the formation of planets outside of our solar system so we now know that there are exoplanets, um planets around other stars um but we don't understand the various formation mechanisms and in particular how you can get planets that have life on them, um and so one of the ways uh and so now I'm sorry to interrupt you there's something called the Goldilocks zone, which is what the, what Earth is. It's in that perfect. Yeah. And that's what you're trying to find is other Goldilocks planets. So we're not looking for planets themselves. Prima is actually going to study the planets when they're in the process of formation because planets form out of a disc of material that sits around stars and it sort of collects, collects up the material and that becomes the planet. But one of the big questions about understanding habitability on planets is understanding how the planets got things like water and other chemical species, both in the planet and in their atmosphere. And so with Prima, we're going to be able to study these disks as they're forming. And in particular, we're going to be able to measure the water content. So water is a key ingredient and also be able to determine their chemical, you know, measure their chemical abundances as well. How? Okay. So that the answer to that question could probably go on for an hour. But this is from a space telescope. So how are you going to be able to examine exoplanets and whether they've got water or capabilities of developing water on those planets that are millions of light years away? How does a telescope do that? So that's a really great question. So again, we're not looking at the exoplanet. We're looking at the disk that the exoplanet will form out of. But what Prima is doing is, so Prima is providing access to all the energies in the far infra red part of the light spectrum. So that goes all the way from where JWST, James Webb Space Telescope, ends all the way to sort of radio wavelengths where ground-based observatories kick in. And those energies of light have unique signatures that we look for that tell you that we are seeing water in the planets or other chemical species. And so the data itself holds a unique signature when we're looking at a disk that tells you we have water and it's this temperature of water. So this new, let me back up a second, the James Webb Space Telescope, which has been a game changer. Yes, absolutely. It cannot see certain things, even though, you know, it's been a game changer in space exploration, it still can't see everything. And that's what this new Prima telescope hopes to do is see things that James Webb cannot. that's part of it yeah so no one single telescope can do everything can see everything because everything that we look at in astronomy stars planets black holes um emits across at a wide range of energies and so those different energies tell you different things about the object that you're looking at and so the JWST telescope is doing a really good job of of looking at these protoplanetary disks, but it just sees the really hot water because that's the energies that it's looking at. But a lot of the water is existing in these colder phases. And so it's kind of like looking at the tip of the iceberg, right? You don't know how much is beneath the surface unless you're able to probe these other wavelengths. And that analogy holds for the other science areas as well, such as understanding star formation and black hole growth in galaxies. We can see some of that and do bits of that with JWST. But a lot of the light from these processes like star formation and embedded black hole growth happens behind dust in galaxies. And so it's hidden. And you can only see that through these far infrared wavelengths that Prima sees. Interesting. All right. We're up on our first commercial break, folks. Stay with us. Plenty more to talk about. We're back in just a moment. This is 22 News in Focus with Patrick Berry. This is 22 News in Focus. with Patrick Berry. Welcome back, everyone, to this edition of News in Focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry. Sitting across the desk from me from the University of Massachusetts is Alex Pope. She is an astronomy professor and one of the members that are on the team creating this Prima telescope, which do we know when it will be completed, launched? The current plan is for 2033, so it's quite a fast timescale. So let me ask you this. So you said that the Prima is looking for different telltale signs of how things get formed and it's an infrared detector in very simple terms, did I get it right? Yeah, okay so how does, how is the James Webb Space Telescope, is it missing that infrared thing and so that this new Prima telescope will gather data that James Webb cannot and kind of bring them together, yeah yeah so absolutely they're definitely going to work together. JWST does go out to mid-infrared wavelengths. So the infrared spectrum is very wide. It's got near-infrared, mid-infrared, and far-infrared. This is exclusively far-infrared, so it doesn't overlap at all with JWST. But the problem is when you're looking at distant objects in the universe, the light gets shifted to longer wavelengths. And so the JWST telescope can see mid-infrared light from relatively nearby objects, galaxies, stars, supermassive black holes. But as you look to more distant objects, that light gets shifted into the far infrared. And so there are a lot of really exciting discoveries that JWST is making that, you know, basically push towards a need for this far infrared. And so JWST and Prima will work really well together to be able to fill in all those wavelengths together. So is the anticipation when this telescope launches, I guess between the time it launches and data comes back, what's that window like? It'll be pretty quickly. Oh, really? Yeah. Within six months, we'll start. Oh, wow. I think, yeah. So is the expectation that the images and data coming back from this Prima telescope will—I mean, we've all been amazed by James Webb. Is this the next level, or should we not expect those kind of images? This is more data-driven. So Prima won't have the same spatial resolution as JWST, so it won't have those crisp details that you see. But what it doesn't have in the spatial resolution, it makes up for in the spectral information. And by that, I mean it's giving you information over a huge range of energies with all these different tracers of star formation and water and planets and all of those diagnostics. So we're running through a couple of photos you sent me of the artist's rendering of what it will be coming up next. It will be the team of people that are involved in this across the country. So this telescope, for lack of a better description, is looking at cosmic dust? Yep. Cosmic dust, cosmic gas. Things that JWST came up with. Things that emit at far-infrared wavelengths. so if you imagine you want to study stars forming right so you've got a bunch of stars forming in a galaxy they form behind a bunch of from a bunch of gas and dust and so as those stars try to radiate energy it gets trapped up in that dust the dust heats up and then it shines light at far infrared wavelengths and so the light from these new stars that tells us about stars forming actually mostly comes out in the far infrared. And so in order to map out, you know, the history of star formation, we need those far infrared wavelengths. So give me an idea of perspective. How far into the universe is this expected to look? Or do we, it's, it's a wide range. It could be near, it could be distant. Yeah. So we've, we've, we're, we're definitely, we've got the key science areas are looking at objects in our, you know, in our galaxy. We want to study the protoplanetary disks, But we're also planning to study galaxies, you know, 12 billion years in the past. And potentially it can go even further. But that's sort of what we've what are sort of what we're designed to answer. So that's that's an interesting thing. So is the goal to examine our galaxy first and then go out or kind of a bunch of different things like different teams at different times? Yeah, we've got different key projects that we're looking at. So we've got our sample of local protoplanetary disks, we've got our distant galaxy surveys, we've got some nearby galaxies that we're looking at as well. So it's an array of objects. But one thing I do want to say is all of the science that I've been talking about is just the science that was developed to design the mission. But in fact, 75% of the time, this telescope is going to be doing different things that are going to be designed by the astronomy community. And so it's going to be open for proposals, much like other telescopes. And that's, in fact, perhaps the most interesting part of this is that whenever you make a new facility, a new instrument that has incredible capabilities that you've never had before, the discovery space is huge. And so I anticipate that the most interesting things that we will do with Prima, we don't even know about yet. um and that's the part that's really exciting we don't know what we don't know um and so that's the most exciting part and so you know maybe we'll push out to you know the most distant galaxies maybe we'll do something other novel in our own galaxy so thinking about what you do now yeah are there certain areas of space that in your brain as you're sitting here now you're like i want to look at that i've looked at this through other means but there's got to be something there do you do you in your head are you like yeah i want to look yeah you know because i know there's this famous picture from the james webb it's like i think if if you hold a penny at arm's length or whatever and it's like and it shows you 10 billion galaxies or something like that we're looking at black sky is there something like that that you're looking you're on there's got to be something there the thing that i'm most interested in looking at is you know so i i study with my research group at UMass, how the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies co-evolve with the galaxy itself. So how they grow together. And the reason why this is interesting is, you know, our Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. Every galaxy seems to have one. Sometimes they're growing, sometimes they're not. We have a pretty good picture of what's happening in our local universe. But in order to understand how it got that way, you have to go back in time and look at these things as they're growing. And so one of the key science areas is to go back and look 12 billion years ago and actively measure how fast galaxies like our Milky Way are growing their stars and growing their black holes. And the predictions from theory are very hugely, we have no idea. And so being able to put constraints on this and understand exactly how fast they're growing, it's like a huge unsolved question right now in astronomy. And I think it's just gonna be really exciting. And it's something Prima can definitely do and is designed to do. Fantastic. We are up on our second commercial break, folks. Stay with us. There's still a lot more to talk about. We're back in just a minute. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to this edition of In Focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry. Sitting across the desk from me today is Dr. Alexandra Pope from the University of Massachusetts. She's Not only a professor of astronomy up there, but she is also one of the key figures in a group of people. Do you know how many are in the Prima project? Oh, gosh. There's about 35 co-investigators on the project, but we have hundreds, if you can't, you know, all the engineers and technicians. And it's a big team. And the Prima project is something that NASA initiated. They put out to the community of scientists, astronomers. Mars. We want to explore something else in space. You guys came up with this far infrared idea. NASA's like, we like it. And now you're moving forward. And you said early on, this probably won't get launched until 2033. 2033. Yeah. So this has been a long process. And this just didn't happen in the last year or two. This has been going on for probably a decade or more. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, right now to launch doesn't seem like that long to build a whole telescope, but it's because a lot of the work has been done over the last five years to sort of develop the plan and the technology. And even before that, you know, building up the teams and the expertise in the science areas. You know, you talk about the team. So is this a high level brain project that you and PhDs and doctors from around the country are working on or are you involving the kids the students on the campus of University of Massachusetts is this something that they're getting hands-on real world experience in or is this just you know you teach astronomy to the kids and then when you're not in the classroom you're working on this prima thing yeah no the students are very much integrated into the project um uh you know i i am super passionate about this project and the research and the science questions but as a professor you know the most satisfying part of my job is mentoring students and seeing them sort of develop and grow the skills and then set off on their own, you know, scientific careers, whatever those may be. So I have a group at UMass of graduate students, undergraduate students that work on various projects. Some of them are definitely linked to the kind of future science that Prima will be doing. And so we're sort of training these future generations because this telescope, you know, launching in '23 or '33 is always, you know, with these planning processes, the telescopes are always taking a while. And so it's the younger generations that are going to be using them. And so you need to train. You were that younger generation 10 years ago. Exactly. Yeah. So you need to train the students. And so it's a really amazing opportunity for students to get this, to be able to get in on the ground floor and to be able to be involved. Does this really bring home to students the time it takes for a project, sorry for the bad pun, to get off the ground yeah yeah no i think i think so um i'm thinking these students that you're teaching now so they're 18 years old 19 20 years old 22 years old they were 10 years old give or take a couple years yeah when this idea first started yes yeah and they'll be 30 years old by the time it launches yes yeah no you definitely have an appreciation for that once you once you learn a little bit about i mean when i started graduate school JWST was going to launch within the five to 10 years. And that was a long time ago. And that's what happens with these big projects. With this program, NASA sort of reined things in a little bit more and wanted something that could be completed on a shorter timescale, which is why 2033 is not that far away. But it's a great time now to involve more students. So over the coming five years before we launch, my group will be involved in creating simulated data sets that we might expect to see with Prima, using that to test our analysis and reduction pipelines, doing other investigations with JWST and other telescopes to sort of do precursor studies to learn about what we might be expecting. So are you and your team here in Western Mass, are you building the physical item that will get launched? Or are you designing the tools that will do the measurements to send the data back? Yeah, so we're working on the science part of it. So all the building happens elsewhere. Like I said, we're a big team. We have tons of instrument scientists and engineers. Here in Western Mass? Not in Western Mass, no. So at Western Mass, it's my group that's part of the science team. But there's still a lot of work to do to make sure that we can make these measurements, right? I think I said at the beginning that, you know, this is all driven by the science questions to start with. You design a whole telescope to be able to answer these. So then when you launch it, you need to be able to answer those questions and be ready to do the analysis. And, yeah. So I think of Hubble, James Webb, these things, Hubble, I don't even know how many years Hubble's been in space. Still going, yeah. Yeah, and James Webb will continue. Yeah. What's the lifespan of this? Is there a lifespan or will this go on for years, decades even? Right. So just like JWST, which was promised to be a five-year mission, but of course we are well beyond that now and it can keep going. Prima is planned to be a five-year mission, but it can go for longer. So NASA usually commits to this will be, you know, this is the minimum amount that it can be. But it could, we hope and we expect that it could go for longer. So let's fast forward. 2033. You're starting to, or 2034, give it a little bit of time. You're starting to get back your first bits of data. Do you and the team start crunching that data to determine, has this been a success? Or is this answering the questions that we're developing now? we have to verify that the data meets all the criteria that we set out. And I mean, that happens pretty quickly. And then we turn that data into the actual science measurements that we're trying to measure, these black hole accretion rates or these amount of water in a disk. And then we use that to answer, to address the science questions. But then we look for other surprises and other interesting things in our data. And that will be very exciting. Yeah. This is absolutely amazing. So 2033 is when this launches. And then so it's the lifespan is a minimum five years after that. We'll call it 2040 and beyond. We'll still be getting data. Has NASA said, after Prima goes, we want to develop something else? They always have sort of a long range plan. They're always engaging with the community to get ideas. And so that is definitely going on always in the background. You know, there's a couple of ideas that are being developed right now. So NASA recognizes that, you know, you can't do science at a single wavelength and you need to have access to different wavelengths, different energies to be able to do the full science. And so it's great to have Prima to complement JWST, but, you know, there is the full electromagnetic spectrum. And so there's always. Yeah. Dr. Alexander Pope, I cannot thank you enough for joining me today. This has been a such a fascinating conversation. Hopefully you'll come back. We can talk more space at a future date. Great. Thank you for having me. Good seeing you. Thanks. This is 22 News in Focus with Patrick Berry.