Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica
With a 10-meter primary mirror, the South Pole Telescope is the largest millimeter-wave telescope dedicated to observing the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and can produce large-scale CMB maps at unparalleled resolution.
NIST has played a significant role in all three generations of SPT cameras, providing sensors and/or electronics to collect sensor data for SPT-SZ, SPTpol, and the current camera, SPT-3G.
The SPT made the very first detection of the B-mode lensing signal, a pattern that confirms the theory of cosmic inflation, and has discovered thousands of galaxy clusters.
With its unique location, the SPT plays a critical role in achieving the goal of the Event Horizon Telescope network to image the event horizon around the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
National Science Foundation, DOE Office of Science High Energy Physics, Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, U.S. Antarctic Program and Antarctic Support Contract