The Caltech Submil-limeter Observatory atop Mauna Kea will fall short of reaching 30 years of exploration.
The Caltech Submil-limeter Observatory atop Mauna Kea will fall short of reaching 30 years of exploration.
The California Institute of Technology announced Friday it will end operations of the facility in September. It was initially slated to be decommissioned next year.
Simon Radford, the observatory’s technical operations manager, said the telescope has had a successful life and been a part of numerous scientific discoveries, including many related to stellar formation.
“We are of course sad that it’s coming to an end,” he said. “But you know, all things come to an end.”
Caltech’s announcement came just three days after Gov. David Ige outlined his vision for better stewardship atop Mauna Kea, including decommissioning at least three of the 13 telescopes before the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope is built.
“While this telescope has contributed to ground-breaking scientific research, it has reached the end of its useful life,” Ige said in a statement. “I appreciate Caltech’s commitment to dismantling this telescope quickly and restoring the site in a culturally and environmentally respectful manner.”
As previously announced in 2009, Caltech will begin planning for the dismantling of the observatory, with the return of the site to its natural state by 2018. The university says the process will be planned in close coordination with the Office of Mauna Kea Management and that it is committed to the dismantling of the telescope and site restoration according to the Decommissioning Plan approved by the Board of Land and Natural Resources.
Since CSO began operations in 1987, astronomers from around the world have used it to pursue research and to accomplish groundbreaking achievements in submillimeter and millimeter astronomy — the study of light emitted by atoms, molecules and dust grains in the interstellar space where stars and planets form, as stated in a release.
Radford said that when the CSO was built, the field of submillimeter astronomy was hardly explored. Over the past three decades, the observatory has helped pave the way for additional facilities, including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile.
“I think it’s safe to say (ALMA) would not have been built, nor would it have had the technology to work, were it not for the early observations at the CSO,” Radford said.
CSO founding director Tom Phillips, the John D. MacArthur professor of physics, emeritus, at Caltech, said in a statement that it has been a “most exciting time in which the field of submillimeter astronomy has been developed, leading to an understanding of astrochemistry, star formation, and distant, dust-obscured galaxies.”
The National Science Foundation funded the CSO from its construction in 1984 to the end of 2012. Since funding was terminated, the observatory has been operating mostly with internal funds from Caltech, according to Roberts. Today, CSO has a staff of four, down from 11 in 2012.
“We plan to continue observations into sometime in September,” Roberts said. “Beyond that, it was more difficult to do anything.”
Roberts added that the end of the observatory means some of the staff will transfer to other telescopes, while others will find themselves out of work.
“It’s sad to have it come to an end,” he said.
For information, visit cso.caltech.edu/cso.html.