Project Overview
ULTIMATE-Subaru (Ultra-wide Laser Tomographic Imager and MOS with AO for Transcendent Exploration) is an innovative, telescope upgrading project of the Subaru Telescope, to keep its scientific competitiveness toward the 2030s and beyond. By implementing a next-generation adaptive optics (AO) system to improve the image quality over a wide field on the sky, we aim to explore the deep, panoramic, and sharp views of the universe. ULTIMATE-Subaru is officially kicked off as “A-project” of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). Scientists/engineers in the Subaru Telescope/NAOJ, Tohoku University, University of Tokyo, Australian National University (ANU, Australia), and Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica (ASIAA, Taiwan) are now actively working on the conceptual/preliminary design studies of the new adaptive optics and wide-field instruments.
Project Logo
In April 2020, in collaboration with Adachi Design Laboratory, we designed a new project logo for ULTIMATE-Subaru. The new logo design explains the concept of ULTIMATE-Subaru project and the wish of our team members very well - the new wide-field adaptive optics will allow us to study distant galaxies in detail, as if they are "falling down" to the Subaru Telescope by penetrating through the earth's atosphere. The background color gradation from blue to red reminds us of the beautiful sunset at the top of Maunakea in the Big Island, Hawaii.
Science
Have you ever thought about the birth and origins of galaxies? If you look up into the night sky, you would be fascinated by a large variety of galaxies and their beautifulness. Understanding when, where, and how the galaxies were born is one of the most fundamental problems for us ? because we are the residents of the Milky-way galaxy. In other words, studying the galaxy formation and evolution is the study to understand the origin of ourselves, and observations of distant galaxies are the time travel to the early phase of the universe. ULTIMATE-Subaru will provide a wide-field, sensitive, and high angular resolution to observe the universe, delivering a sharp view of galaxy formation along the formation of the cosmic large-scale structures. In addition to the extra-galactic science, the excellent infrared observational capabilities achieved by ULTIMATE-Subaru will also bring a breakthrough on a variety of astronomical science fields, and eventually play an important role to provide our unique observational targets for 30-m class telescopes in the world.
Overview of the science goals of ULTIMATE-Subaru
