| Location(s) | Antarctica |
|---|---|
| First light | 29 December 2012  |
| Telescope style | balloon-borne telescope cosmic microwave background experiment radio telescope |
| Website | groups |
The E and B Experiment (EBEX) was an experiment that measured the cosmic microwave background radiation of a part of the sky during two sub-orbital (high-altitude) balloon flights and took large, high-fidelity images of the CMB polarization anisotropies using a telescope which flew at over 42,000 metres (138,000 ft) high. The altitude of the telescope made it possible to reduce the atmospheric absorption of microwaves, which allowed massive cost reduction compared to a satellite probe, however, only a small part of the sky can be scanned and for a shorter duration than a typical satellite mission such as WMAP.
The first flight was an engineering flight over North America in 2009.[1] For the science flight, EBEX was launched on 29 December 2012, near McMurdo Station in Antarctica.[2][3] It circled around the South Pole using the polar vortex winds before landing on 24 January 2013 about 400 miles (640 km) from McMurdo.[4]
- ^ Reichborn-Kjennerud, Britt; et al. (July 15, 2010). "EBEX: A balloon-borne CMB polarization experiment". SPIE Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V. San Diego: SPIE. arXiv:1007.3672. Bibcode:2010SPIE.7741E..1CR. doi:10.1117/12.857138.
- ^ Blog post from a member of the EBEX science team describing the launch.
- ^ YouTube video of the EBEX launch.
- ^ Blog post describing the landing.