Gemini Observatory - Research & development

In collaboration with the Australian Astronomical Observatory and the Australian National University, the NRC has constructed both the spectrograph and enclosure for this cutting-edge instrument. Learn more on our project page.

The NRC led this cooperative effort to allow starlight gathered by Gemini to be fed into a specialized instrument at the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope (CFHT), allowing users to learn more about the characteristics of objects in space. Connecting the telescopes with a 270 metre fibreoptic feed, GRACES combines the large collecting area of the Gemini North telescope with the high resolving power and high efficiency of the ESPaDOnS spectrograph at CFHT, to deliver high-resolution spectroscopy across the optical region.

This breakthrough offered a new path toward integrating operations of telescopes to capitalize on their various strengths, while expanding the capabilities available to astronomers and industry. The NRC worked with the Kitchener, Ontario-based firm FiberTech Optica to advance the technology needed to manufacture the high-performance connective fibres, the longest ever made for astronomy.

The GPI's adaptive optics has made it the world's most advanced instrument for imaging and analyzing planets around stars and probing their atmosphere. The GPI represents a revolutionary leap forward in the technology that enables ultra-high-contrast imaging. The NRC built the overall optical-mechanical structure and the top level and mechanical control software, and provided the system engineering expertise to connect these components.

The GPI was an international project led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and involving a large consortium of US and Canadian institutes, including the NRC, which contributed the mechanical structure and software that knits all the pieces together. Other partners include;

• National Science Foundation's Center for Adaptive Optics
• UC Observatories' Laboratory for Adaptive Optics
• American Museum of Natural History
• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• University of California Los Angeles' Infrared Laboratory
• University of Montreal, the Space Telescope Science Institute
• University of California Santa Cruz
• University of California Berkeley
• the Dunlap Institute of the University of Toronto
• the SETI institute in California

The NRC was one of the main partners in the design and fabrication of the twin GMOS instruments (North and South), which are still among the most productive instruments at the Gemini Observatory. Combining imaging and spectroscopic functions, the instruments provide opportunities to observe several hundred objects simultaneously.

The original instruments have since undergone focal plane upgrades that significantly enhance their sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths (600-1000 nm). As a common user instrument, each GMOS supports a wide range of scientific discovery, from high-efficiency surveys of distant stars and galaxy clusters to the study of supernova or exploding stars that improves our understanding of the apparent acceleration of the universe.

GMOS was built by a collaboration between the Astronomy Technology Center at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, the University of Durham UK and the NRC. The NRC was responsible for the design and procurement of the optics and the pre-slit facilities including wave-front sensing.

The NRC built Gemini's ALTAIR adaptive optics system, which captures 3 times more detail in infrared light than the Hubble Space Telescope and gives astronomers the capacity to see through the dust that blocks optical light and look into the heart of star formations. The ALTAIR system corrects images to compensate for the distortion caused by turbulence (mixing of warm and cold air) in the Earth's atmosphere. ALTAIR represented a significant improvement over other adaptive optics systems, and with its improved visibility, astronomers are able to peek into stellar nurseries, or watch the birth of galaxies that formed 10 billion years ago.

The GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign has used this next-generation adaptive optics instrument on Gemini to image extrasolar planets orbiting nearby stars. The survey team including several NRC staff, has recently released the results of their analysis of the first 300 young nearby stars, detecting 6 giant planets and 3 brown dwarfs, producing the first comprehensive survey of giant exoplanets at respective distances to where such planets exist in our own solar system. The analysis suggests brown dwarfs may have formed differently than wide-separation giant planets, which is a long-standing question.

This GPI-enabled survey also led to the discovery of a new Jupiter-like exoplanet, 51 Eridani b. The planet is half a million times fainter than the star it orbits, but advanced observation and data reduction techniques pioneered by NRC astronomers removed the bright light that was hiding the planet. The direct imaging revealed the coldest and lowest-mass planet ever identified, whose strong methane atmosphere and young age–just 20 million years old–could help explain how planets form around our Sun.