Press Release
NASA鈥檚 Balloon Mission GUSTO Mapping the Space Between the Stars
The GUSTO telescope hangs from the hangar crane during telescope pointing tests at the Long Duration Balloon Facility on the Ross Ice Shelf near the U.S. National Science Foundation鈥檚 McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Dec. 6, 2023. Mission specialists were calibrating the star cameras, used to determine the direction of pointing of the telescope. View the full image.
Credit: Jos茅 Silva on behalf of the GUSTO team
Editor鈥檚 Note
GUSTO successfully launched from Antarctica on Dec. 31 at 7:30 p.m. local time (1:30 a.m. EST). The balloon is floating 128,000 feet above Earth鈥檚 surface. You can track its journey around the South Pole in real-time on NASA鈥檚 Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website.
The GUSTO telescope is seen on Nov. 9, 2023, as Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility personnel assist the GUSTO team in flipping the observatory from a horizontal to a vertical position. The photo was taken at the Long Duration Balloon Facility on the Ross Ice Shelf near the U.S. National Science Foundation鈥檚 McMurdo Station, Antarctica. View the full image.
Credit: Jos茅 Silva on behalf of the GUSTO team
As the first balloon-borne experiment in NASA鈥檚 Explorer program, GUSTO will have the same scientific reach as the agency鈥檚 spaceborne satellites, such as TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and IXPE (Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer).
Functioning as a cosmic radio, GUSTO will 鈥渓isten鈥 to high-frequency signals emitted by carbon, oxygen and nitrogen atoms within enormous molecular clouds of dust and gas that accumulate between the stars. Such observations are impossible to do with Earth-based telescopes because of water vapor in the atmosphere, which absorbs the light emitted from these atoms. GUSTO will fly above most of that water vapor. 鈥淔or the type of science we do, it鈥檚 as good as being in space,鈥 said Chris Walker, principal investigator of GUSTO at the University of Arizona.
As the telescope follows air currents around the South Pole, scientists will map the intensity and velocities of these signals, allowing them to later connect the dots and create an image of the emissions.
What鈥檚 more, GUSTO will reveal the 3D structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. The LMC resembles some galaxies of the early universe that NASA鈥檚 James Webb Space Telescope is exploring, but being billions of light-years closer, the LMC will be much easier for scientists to examine in detail.
鈥淏y studying the LMC, comparing it to the Milky Way, we鈥檒l be able to understand how galaxies evolved from the early universe until now,鈥 Walker explained.
The GUSTO telescope, with solar arrays mounted on the gondola that holds it, sits in the Long Duration Balloon Facility on the Ross Ice Shelf near the U.S. National Science Foundation鈥檚 McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Dec. 17 during final preparations before its launch later this month. View the full image.
Credit: Jos茅 Silva on behalf of the GUSTO team
With seals and penguins nearby, a dozen mission team members from APL and the University of Arizona are performing the final checks before GUSTO鈥檚 launch. Once in the air, the APL team will monitor the health and status of the gondola while data collected by the observatory will be transmitted back to the team at the University of Arizona science operations center for analysis.
For Walker, the project represents some 30 years of effort, the outgrowth of many experiments from Earth-based telescopes and other balloon efforts.
鈥淲e all feel very fortunate and privileged to do a mission like this 鈥 to have the opportunity to put together the world鈥檚 most advanced terahertz instrument ever created, and then drag it halfway around the world and then launch it,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a challenge, but we feel honored and humbled to be in the position to do it.鈥
GUSTO is a collaboration between NASA, the University of Arizona, APL, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and others.
Adapted from a NASA release
APL balloon missions and instruments observe planetary targets and the interstellar medium, and conduct other space science investigations. Learn more about GUSTO and other balloon programs.