On October 29, 2023, the INFUSE mission will be launched, designed to explore the mysteries of the emergence of new star systems by studying supernova explosions. The probe rocket will be launched from the White Sands test site in New Mexico.

The constellation Cygnus attracts the attention of astronomers in the northern hemisphere every year. A special artifact of the night sky above this constellation is the Veil Nebula, which has become a favorite object of observation of both astronomy enthusiasts and scientific researchers. It is the remnant of a past star whose size exceeded the mass of our Sun by 20 times. About 20,000 years ago, this giant star experienced a gravitational collapse, resulting in a bright supernova. The brightness of this event, 2,600 light-years away, was so bright that it could be seen from Earth even in daylight.

A supernova explosion is an integral part of a star’s life cycle. They eject heavy elements into the surrounding space, which are formed in the core of the star and then become the source of chemical elements exceeding iron in mass. As a result, planets, stars and new star systems gradually form over time from the scattered dust and gas clouds left behind after the explosion.

The Veil Nebula offers a unique opportunity to observe a recent supernova explosion in its active phase. This giant cloud, whose size exceeds 120 light years, still continues to expand at a speed of approximately 1.5 million kilometers per hour.

What astronomers caught with telescopes does not refer to the explosion itself, but to the dust and gas that was superheated by the shock wave and manifested as a glow when it cooled. To study the shock wave, Professor Brian Fleming and his team developed a telescope that can record ultraviolet radiation with energy too high to be detected by the human eye. This light will help reveal the glow of dust and gas that have been exposed to shock waves and still remain at a high temperature after the process.

The INFUSE mission is an innovative spectrograph that becomes the first instrument of its kind to go into space. This tool combines the advantages of two methods: optical imaging and spectroscopy. Modern optical telescopes have excellent cameras that allow you to accurately determine the direction and spatial position of light. But they can separate light from different wavelengths, and the resulting image has different overlapping spectra.

Spectroscopy, on the other hand, divides the light beam into its components (specific spectra); This is similar to a ray of light splitting into a rainbow through a prism. This procedure will help reveal a lot of additional information about the composition of the light source, its temperature and the dynamics of the processes taking place. But spectroscopy can only help analyze a narrow strip of light at a time, similar to looking at the night sky through a narrow keyhole.

The INFUSE device creates an image and then “crops” it; The spectrometer separates each band into a spectrum. This data can be reconstructed into a three-dimensional “data cube,” which is a stack of images in which each layer reveals a specific wavelength of light.

Using data from INFUSE, Professor Fleming and his team will be able to not only identify specific elements and their temperatures, but also analyze the positions of these elements along the shock wave.

INFUSE will be launched into space on a probe rocket. These are miniature rockets that fly into space for a few minutes to collect scientific data. The mission will launch a two-stage Black Brant 9 rocket, reaching a peak altitude of approximately 240 kilometers, and then descend to the ground with the help of a parachute for further recovery. The team has already planned to upgrade and restart the vehicle. At most, some parts of the rocket are being reused after an earlier launch for the DEUCE mission in Australia in 2022. Source