DATE: October 04, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Barnes, (864) 656-3419
peterb@clemson.edu
WRITER:
Susan Polowczuk, (864) 656-2063
spolowc@clemson.edu
Curry Foundation grant gives unprecedented telescope time
CLEMSON — Deep space just got a little closer for Clemson University astrophysics students. A Curry Foundation grant for $100,000 has made it possible for Clemson faculty and students to have time on the Kitt Peak National Observatory’s 4-meter Mayall telescope in Arizona that will allow them to peer into deep space.
The amount provides for approximately one-third the $290,000 cost for 33 nights. The agreement was made for three years through the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), which is funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF). It also allows Clemson to trade its Mayall 4-meter time for access to other telescopes in the U.S. system around the world.
“We could never have done this without Charles Curry,” said physics and astronomy department chairman Peter Barnes. “This is a terrific opportunity for our faculty and students to get observing time on this phenomenal collection of telescopes that are among the best in the world.”
Associate professor Jeremy King and other faculty plan to take undergraduate and graduate students to Kitt Peak throughout the year.
“These telescopes are several stories high and are operated through a tremendous bank of computers. They’re not your backyard telescopes. To get 33 nights a year on these instruments is more time than some astronomers get in a lifetime,” said King.
With this time, Clemson astrophysicists plan to study gamma ray bursts, supernovae and planet formation in deep space, where distances are measured in light years.
Through the Seneca-based Curry Foundation, more than $300,000 has been donated to the astrophysics program at Clemson since 2001. In addition, Charles Curry has endowed three fellowships for outstanding graduate student researchers in astrophysics over the past three years. The Keowee Key resident and Kansas native sees his donations as an investment in the future.
“I have come to have a keen interest in the Clemson physics program and the telescope availabilities it offers. The great appeal of a wider understanding of human life and our place in the universe continues to be a key subject among many who seek to broaden and increase their knowledge,” said Curry. “The years and decades just ahead will inevitably see great excitement in the science of astronomy and related specialties of study. And these opportunities, I believe, can and will in the decades of the 21st century, do more to change human knowledge in profound ways than the many decades of the past two or three centuries.”
The Clemson University physics and astronomy department is an undergraduate, graduate and post-doctorate program with 26 faculty members.
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