Giving the University of Arizona Mirror Lab a spin

Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

The Planetary Society

Technology, Science

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Join us for a tour of the University of Arizona’s Mirror Lab where they use a giant, spinning oven filled with molten glass to create the primary mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Crossing another item off my bucket list, this week on Planetary Radio.
0:11.1	Welcome.
0:12.1	I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar
0:17.1	system and beyond.
0:19.4	Come with me deep below the University of Arizona's football stadium for a tour of the
0:24.8	Carrus Mirror Lab, where tons of molten glass are spun and polished to become the primary
0:32.3	mirrors for several of our world's largest telescopes.
0:36.9	Our guide will be astronomer, Bjulgen UC, head of UA's Department of Astronomy and the
0:42.4	Steward Observatory.
0:44.8	Sarah Alamed will stop by to help deliver a sampling of holiday gifts that any true
0:50.2	space geek will go gaga over, and I'll have a gift for the winner of the new space
0:55.2	trivia contest in this week's What's Up segment.
0:59.0	We warned you, and it happened just as expected on or about November 17th.
1:05.5	After three and a half years orbiting our planet, the Planetary Society's Light Sail 2
1:11.8	ended its mission in a fireball somewhere over Earth.
1:16.3	We proved that a solar sail could be successfully deployed from a tiny CubeSat, and that it
1:21.6	could maintain its orbit by turning to face the sun and then turn away from it on every
1:27.7	one of approximately 18,000 orbits.
1:31.7	Hats off to the entire Light Sail team and to the 50,000 society members and donors who
1:38.3	made this triumph possible.
1:41.0	Light Sail program manager Bruce Betts will have more to say when we reach What's Up.
1:46.3	Then you can read more in the November 18 edition of the downlink our free weekly newsletter.
	...

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