Space camera blazes new terahertz trails

Wednesday, February 12th, 2003

The European Space Agency’s StarTiger team has developed a new imaging technology. Space camera blazes new terahertz trails explains:

Terahertz waves occupy a portion of the spectrum between infrared and microwaves, from 10¹¹ to 10¹³ Hertz.

Until now, this has been an unexplored part of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, terahertz waves are very interesting as they possess characteristics of both their neighbours: terahertz waves can pass easily through some solid materials, like walls and clothes, yet can be focused as light to create images of objects.

The imager built by the StarTiger team takes pictures at two frequencies, 0.25 and 0.3 THz, to create a two-colour picture to create a contrast between materials with different transmission and reflection properties.

The main advantage of a terahertz imager is that it does not emit any radiation; it is a passive camera capturing pictures of the natural terahertz rays emitted by almost everything, including people, rocks, water, trees and stars.

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Isegoria

Space camera blazes new terahertz trails

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