[Music throughout]
Narrator: When it opens its eyes to our universe in the mid-2020s, WFIRST,
the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, will capture
images unlike any satellite before it. WFIRST
will have the same image resolution as Hubble, but will cover an area
100 times larger. WFIRST will also view the sky
in carefully selected wavelengths of infrared light which will allow it
to see through obscuring dust to reveal hidden stars and
watch the growth of galaxies over the last 10 billion years.
To see what the sky will look like to WFIRST,
scientists use special processing techniques to create simulated images.
In this case, they began with a Hubble mosaic
of Andromeda, one of the closest galaxies to our own.
Released in 2015, this mosaic was created out of over
400 individual Hubble images and took more than three years.
Because of its enormous coverage, WFIRST
will be able to create a similar mosaic with just two images, each
taking about 90 minutes. WFIRST images are
actually made of 18 separate panels, each one corresponding to
a single 16-megapixel detector. The arrangement of these
detectors creates the distinctive WFIRST image shape.
The simulated image is not just special because of its
size, however. It also shows Andromeda as it will appear through
WFIRST’s optics and infrared filters. To achieve
this, scientists started with Hubble filters that are closest to WFIRST's.
Then they used software to measure the positions
and brightnesses of the roughly 100 million stars in those images
and applied those as input to WFIRST image simulation software
which added each star back to the image after applying the expected
effects of the WFIRST optics, filters, and detectors.
The resulting image reveals many stars
that were blocked by dust in visible light. It highlights
WFIRST’s role in providing a more comprehensive view of the stars in the local
universe. WFIRST will also use its broad view
to search for planets around other stars in our galaxy and to look for the
fingerprint of dark matter and dark energy in the distant reaches of the universe.
With an unprecedented combination of breadth and
depth, WFIRST will open a new era in
viewing our universe.
[Explore: Solar system & beyond]
[NASA]