Weave: New device will investigate Milky Way's origins

Image source, ESO

One of Earth's most powerful telescopes has been upgraded with new technology that will reveal how our universe formed.

The William Herschel Telescope will be able to survey 1,000 stars per hour until it catalogues five million stars.

The make-up of each star and the speed at which it travels will be analysed by a mapping device.

It will show how our universe was built up.

The instrument, known as "Weave", has been developed for more than a decade by a professor.

He said that he was excited that it was ready to leave.

He said that it was great to have it working and that it was a great achievement from a lot of people. The new adventure is brilliant.

Image source, Gavin Dalton

The WHT is located on a mountain top on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma. It's called the WHT Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer and it's what it's named for.

It is a miracle of engineering.

Astronomers look at a thousand stars for each patch of sky. Weave's robotic fingers place a light-transmitting tube on each location on a plate, pointing towards its corresponding star.

The fibres are in use. Light from a single star is captured by each of them. The secrets of the star's origin are contained in the rainbow spectrum.

The entire thing is done in one hour. Once the previous survey has been completed, fibre optics for the next thousand stars are positioned on the reverse side of the plate, flipping over to analyse the next set of targets.

Image source, Science Photo Library

Our universe is made up of 400 billion stars. It was a collection of stars.

Over billions of years, it grew from mergers. Each merger leads to the creation of new stars, as well as the addition of stars from the new galaxies joining ours.

Weave is able to calculate the speed, direction, age and composition of the stars it observes, creating a motion picture of the stars in the sky. The formation of the Milky Way will be reconstructed in detail by extrapolating backwards.

He said that they would be able to see how each absorption causes new star formation.

Dr Balcells, who is in charge of the WHT, believes that Weave will lead to a big change in our understanding of how the universe works.

We have been told for a long time that we are in a golden era of astronomy, but what the future holds is more important.

Figuring out how many pieces come together to make a big galaxy is one of the questions astronomy has been asking for decades.

Image source, BBC News

Dr Cecilia Farina believes that Weave will make history.

There are a lot of things that we are going to discover that we didn't expect. The Universe is filled with surprises.

The Cosmic Hunters is a short film that shows Weave and other telescopes.