A local astronomer will be watching closely in the coming days as decades of his work flies into space aboard a Japanese rocket.
Andrew Szymkowiak studies cosmic X-Rays and he said this type of light carries lots of information about the universe. Things at high temperatures like, "stars that have blown up," he said. "Neutron stars and pulsars where the matter is compacted to a very dense state. Black holes, where the heat comes from the energy of something falling down into the gravitational well of the black hole."
Szymkowiak, a senior research scientist at Yale, said scientists have been studying cosmic X-Rays for decades. Since the mid 1980s, he's been working on a new type of X-Ray detector called the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS), which he said will better decode the energy embedded in those cosmic rays -- and give scientists improved insight into dark matter, galaxy cluster creation, and element formation.
SXS will be a crucial component of the "ASTRO-H" X-Ray telescope, which is launching from Japan in the coming days. The device, which is cooled to near absolute zero, works by recording slight temperature increases from incoming X-ray photons.
Szymkowiak said it's been a long road to launch. "There's a reason why they say rocket science is hard," he said. One earlier attempt at launching the device failed to reach orbit, and another achieved orbit, but stopped working after 17 days, according to a Yale spokesperson.
Still, Szymkowiak said he's been sleeping well in the days leading up the launch. And in the coming days, he said he'll be up bright and early, glued to his computer and watching as 30 years of science blasts into the heavens.
Update: A previous version of this article said ASTRO-H was scheduled to launch local time on Friday. That launch has since been postponed due to inclement weather.
