Japan launches space telescope

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4738024.stm

A rocket carrying a satellite space telescope has lifted off from the
Uchinoura Space Centre in Japan.
The M-5 rocket blasted off at 0628 on Wednesday (2128 GMT Tuesday) after a
48-hour delay caused by heavy rain.

The Astro-F probe will use infrared wavelengths to study the heat glow of
space objects hidden by clouds of cosmic dust.

European astronomers are collaborating with Japan on the 500-day mission to
make a map of the Universe.

Astro-F will orbit the Earth over the North and South Poles to make its
infrared and far-infrared survey of the sky.

The All Sky Survey, as it is called, will be conducted at a much higher
sensitivity than the one first obtained by an infrared astronomical
satellite launched in 1983.

"This is a tremendous new window on the primordial Universe," said Dr
Stephen Serjeant, senior lecturer in astrophysics at the Open University in
Milton Keynes, UK.

"Astro-F is expected to be one of the most important international
observatories of the decade."

Glenn White, professor of astronomy at the Open University and the CCLRC
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, said the mission would provide a powerful
new tool to learn about the birth and formation of stars and planets.

"It is going to completely revolutionise the study of galaxies in the
process of formation at the edge of the Universe," he told the BBC News
website.

Astro-F was the third Japanese launch this year, as the nation's space
programme races to catch up with its regional rival China.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) launched two H-2A rockets
carrying observation satellites in January and February from the remote
southern island of Tanegashima.


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