1 00:00:12,780 --> 00:00:16,530 Mary Estacion/Reporter: The Mid Infrared Instrument or MIRI on the James Webb Space Telescope 2 00:00:16,530 --> 00:00:18,920 is unique in a number of ways. 3 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:23,250 First of all, it looks at a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum than the other 4 00:00:23,250 --> 00:00:24,619 instruments do. 5 00:00:24,619 --> 00:00:26,680 It looks at mid infrared frequencies. 6 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:30,360 Second of all, it takes both pictures and spectra. 7 00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:35,410 To find out more about the MIRI, we have with us the European principal investigator, Gillian 8 00:00:35,410 --> 00:00:36,410 Wright. 9 00:00:36,410 --> 00:00:41,030 Gillian, it looks at the mid infrared range of frequencies. 10 00:00:41,030 --> 00:00:42,030 What is mid infrared? 11 00:00:42,030 --> 00:00:45,539 Gillian Wright/MIRI, European Principal Investigator: Mid infrared means we look at longer wavelengths 12 00:00:45,539 --> 00:00:50,559 compared to what the other instruments do, which is described as near infrared. 13 00:00:50,559 --> 00:00:53,239 It's better at seeing through dust. 14 00:00:53,239 --> 00:01:01,329 It's also better at looking at different colors of objects, lots of molecules that might indicate 15 00:01:01,329 --> 00:01:03,359 life on other planets... 16 00:01:03,359 --> 00:01:06,720 Those molecules make spectra in the mid infrared. 17 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:09,659 Mary: It takes both pictures and spectra, why the two? 18 00:01:09,659 --> 00:01:13,620 Gillian, Yes, because to do our science, we want to be able to take both pictures and 19 00:01:13,620 --> 00:01:18,550 spectra so I suppose in an ideal world, we would've had two mid infrared instruments 20 00:01:18,550 --> 00:01:24,020 on JWST, but there wasn't space so we built it into just one instrument that does both 21 00:01:24,020 --> 00:01:25,020 things. 22 00:01:25,020 --> 00:01:29,570 Mary: And I understand we have a real, honest to goodness, MIRI, right here at Rutherford 23 00:01:29,570 --> 00:01:30,770 Appleton Laboratory, right? 24 00:01:30,770 --> 00:01:35,009 Gillian: Yes, we're all really excited because we've just finished putting the flight model 25 00:01:35,009 --> 00:01:37,810 of the instrument together and we're about to start testing. 26 00:01:37,810 --> 00:01:39,980 Mary: so Gillian, this is the MIRI, huh? 27 00:01:39,980 --> 00:01:44,430 Gillian: Yes, this is the MIRI, the flight instrument, so we need to be very careful. 28 00:01:44,430 --> 00:01:48,969 MIRI deliberately has a very modular design. 29 00:01:48,969 --> 00:01:56,320 So that each module, for example, this box here can be built and tested by itself before 30 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:58,100 we build it into the rest of the instrument. 31 00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:00,039 Mary: Did you build these modules all here? 32 00:02:00,039 --> 00:02:01,039 Gillian: No. 33 00:02:01,039 --> 00:02:05,580 We had different modules built in different parts of Europe so that way we could use the 34 00:02:05,580 --> 00:02:10,399 skills of a lot of different institutes, all of which have very specialist knowledge about 35 00:02:10,399 --> 00:02:15,540 certain areas of how to do instruments and we could bring it all together to create the 36 00:02:15,540 --> 00:02:16,540 MIRI. 37 00:02:16,540 --> 00:02:18,660 Mary: But the MIRI is both a spectrometer and an imager. 38 00:02:18,660 --> 00:02:19,660 Gillian: Yes, that's right. 39 00:02:19,660 --> 00:02:23,709 When the spectrometer, when it's this way round, the spectrometer sits 40 00:02:23,709 --> 00:02:28,650 on top, but we can turn the instrument over so we can take a look at the imager.... 41 00:02:28,650 --> 00:02:34,320 The light would come in here from the telescope and it hits the mirror which turns it and 42 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:36,959 sends it to the middle of the instrument. 43 00:02:36,959 --> 00:02:42,959 Most of the light is then sent to the imager so that we can take pictures with the imager 44 00:02:42,959 --> 00:02:49,180 and a very small fraction of the light is sent to the spectrometer for us to do spectroscopy. 45 00:02:49,180 --> 00:02:52,379 Mary: Gillian, thank you so much for showing us your MIRI. 46 00:02:52,379 --> 00:02:54,260 Gillian: You're very welcome. 47 00:02:54,260 --> 00:02:59,940 Mary: As you can see the MIRI is basically two instruments in one and it will be able 48 00:02:59,940 --> 00:03:04,680 to do its job because of the help of international partners.