TU Delft - In Search of First Light

Astronomers looking to find out more about the early beginnings of our universe need to measure infrared light which has taken between 2 and 10 billion years to reach earth. Sensitive instruments are required for this. In October 2017, Dutch and Japanese researchers, led by Akira Endo (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands), mounted the special chip on the Japanese ASTE telescope in North Chile. The core of the instrument is a chip the size of two euro coins that measures 49 tones of far infrared light. In the summer of 2019, it was announced in Nature Astronomy that the DESHIMA instrument of Dutch-Japanese origin had passed its first practical tests. The research is explained in the film 'In Search of First Light'.