Korea’s Meteorological Institute Triumphs with Game-Changing Spectrograph for World’s Largest Telescope

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) announced on the 9th that it had successfully developed and conducted the first observation with the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph (IGRINS-2), an infrared high-dispersion spectrograph for the world-class Gemini Observatory.

A spectrograph is a device that analyzes light collected through an astronomical telescope by breaking it down by wavelength. It is essential for determining the components of celestial bodies and their velocities. Dispersion, which refers to the splitting of light, is categorized into high, medium, and low dispersion depending on the level of detail.

The Gemini Observatory consists of two 8.1-meter (26.6-foot) diameter large telescopes, each established in Hawaii, U.S., and Cerro Pachón, Chile. It is currently ranked among the world’s largest optical telescopes and the Subaru Telescope.

In October of this year, the KASI’s Observatory Instrument Development Team installed the spectrograph at an observatory located at an altitude of about 13,780 feet on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and successfully captured the expanding gas emission lines of the planetary nebula NGC 7027.

The first observation target, the planetary nebula NGC 7027, located in Cygnus, is about 3,000 light-years away from Earth and is a star in its death phase 3 to 4 times more massive than the Sun. The development team successfully captured various spectral lines emanating from the gas expanding from the center using IGRINS-2.

The IGRINS-2 spectrograph is a specialized observation instrument for research on the birth and evolution of stars and planetary systems, the discovery of exoplanets, and elucidation of their characteristics. A silicon immersion grating as a core component can observe a broad wavelength band with high sensitivity in a smaller volume than existing spectrographs. Notably, it can simultaneously monitor the H-band (1.49~1.80 micrometers) and K-band (1.96~2.46 micrometers) in the infrared region, allowing for detailed analysis of the physical characteristics of celestial bodies.

The IGRINS-2 spectrograph is expected to be available to astronomers worldwide as early as the second half of 2024, after additional test observations and performance verification processes in the first half of 2024.

Park Chan, the person in charge of this development at KASI, said, “Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for most of the development period, we managed to complete the development and test observations without any delay. This has strengthened our pride in the development capabilities of domestic astronomical technology.”

Byung-gon Park, the director of the Large Telescope Project at KASI, emphasized, “The significance is great in that we have developed and are utilizing the main observation instrument for the first 8-meter class large telescope in Korea.”

Meanwhile, KASI has cooperated with the Gemini Observatory in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile since 2019. After the IGRINS spectrograph, which was jointly developed with the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, was recognized for its performance in the Gemini Observatory community, KASI has been developing the improved IGRINS-2 exclusively for the Gemini Observatory since 2020.

By. Choi Sang Guk