NASA launches ‘black hole hunter’
Astronomers hope telescope will reveal black holes and exploding stars in a way never seen before.
Published On 13 Jun 2012
NASA is calling it the black hole hunter, a newly launched telescope that could just change the way we see the universe.
The nuclear spectroscopic telescope array, or NuStar, has just left a US military air base in the Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific ocean.
NuStar will become operational in about a week, when a long mast about the length of a bus will unfold in space.
Once deployed, astronomers will be able to get a close look at what are known as high-energy fields in space like exploding stars and black holes.
Al Jazeera’s Anand Naidoo reports from Washington.
Source: Al Jazeera