Xinhua News Agency, Nanjing, November 1 reporter learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Nanjing Astronomical Optical Technology Institute was informed that the Antarctic telescope AST3-2 in the 2017 observation year for the first time to overcome the arctic, blizzard and other harsh conditions, the first time in the Antarctic unmanned Under the conditions of the winter observation.This shows that China for the extreme environment of the telescope development, operation technology has made a breakthrough.
AST3-2 is the second telescope built by China in Antarctic inland dome A in January 2015. Its entrance pupil diameter of 50 cm, field of view 8 square degrees, is the largest available optical telescope in the Antarctic, in extreme environments Under the unattended automatic observation.
Yuan Xiang-yan, a researcher at Nanjing TianGuang, introduced that for the first time in 2017, AST3-2 achieved the first full-winter observation from the end of March to the beginning of September. During this period, Antarctic ice dome A experienced a temperature of -35 ° C to -75 ° C, Wind speed of more than 12 meters per second snow storm, but the telescope spent a severe test again and again, and ultimately unmanned conditions in the smooth realization of the year-round winter observations.
It is reported that during the 2017 observing year, a number of important achievements have been made in the observation and observation of extrasolar planets, supernovae, and corresponding observations of gravitational wave optics using the AST3-2 at institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Purple Mountain Observatory, National Astronomical Observatories, Nanjing University and Tsinghua University Results AST3-2 has observed more than 200 extrasolar planet candidates and currently confirms more than 100 high-confidence extrasolar planet candidates. From August 18 to August 28, the Chinese Antarctic astronomy team successfully detected using AST3-2 The first dual neutron star combines the optical counterpart of gravitational wave GW170817 with the optically variable signals, which not only provide China data for the detection of gravitational waves, but also allow our astronomers to participate in the research of key international astronomical events with their own devices .
At present, the third Antarctic telescope AST3-3 has completed the manufacture and testing of the hardware main body and plans to conduct a pilot test next year. The AST3-3 extends the observation range to the near infrared band and can make full use of the great advantage of the inland infrared observation in the Antarctic. It is expected to break through the bottleneck of China's infrared astronomical observation by carrying out research on the time-domain sky observation and extrasolar planet exploration in the near infrared band.