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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Cheng Fuzhen (Hefei University, China)

Title: WSO/UV mission concept and science goals

Date: Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Time: 12:00 noon
Venue: Villa Bazzoni

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Abstract: The WSO (World Space Observatory) is a space telescope working in UV waveband since UV can only be reached from beyond the atmosphere of the Earth, and an uncoventional space project proceeding via distributed studies. The present design consists of a 1.7-meter telescope operating at the L2 point of the Earth-Sun system. The focal plane instruments consist of three UV spectrometers covering the spectral band from Lyman alpha to atmospheric cutoff with R~55,000 and offering long-slit capability over the same band with R~1000-2000. In addition, a number of UV and optical imagers view adjacent fields to that sampled by the spectrometers. Their performance compares well with that of HST/ACS and the spectral capabilities of WSO rival those of HST/COS. So WSO will be capable to answer fundamental questions and contribute, in an essential way, to solve currently pending questions with respect to evolution of the Planetary System, Stars, Galaxies and the Large Scale Structure of the Universe.
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