Question

Federal funding agencies must form committees to decide which telescope projects will receive funds for construction. When deciding whic projects wil be funded, the committees must consider:

that certain wavelengths of light are blocked from reaching Earth's surface by the atmosphere,

how efficiently telescopes work at different wavlengths, and

that telescopes in space are much more expensive to construct than Earth-based telescopes.

Using these three criteria, consider each pairing of telescope proposals listed below. For each pair, state which of the two you would choose to fund and explain your reasoning.

Pair A)

Project Beta:  An X-ray wavelength telescope, located near the North Pole, which will be used to examine the Sun.

Project Alpha: An infrared wavelength telescope, placed on a satellite in orbit around Earth, which will be used to view supernovae.

Pair B)

Project Rho: A UV wavelength telescope, placed high atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii at 14,000 ft above sea level, which will be used to look at distant galaxies.

Project Sigma: A visible wavelength telescope, placed on a satellite orbit around Earth, which will be used to observe a pair of binary stars located in the constellation Ursa Major.

Pair C)

Project Zeta:  A radio wavelength telescope, placed on the floor of the Mojave Desert, which will be used to detect potential communications from distant civilizations outside our solar system.

Project Epsilon:  An infrared wavelength telescope, located in the high-elevation mountains of Chile, which will be used to view newly forming stars (protostars) in the Orion nebula.

Answer 1

use the above picture to understand the which wavelengths are able to reach the earth surface and which are not.

since UV light is not able to reach the earths surface we need to install the UV telescope in space whereas since we are able to receive the visible wvelengths we can instal visible wavelength telescope on earth surface. Keeping these points in mind we see that Pair B (Project Rho and Project Sigma) is not appropriate.

Pair C (Project Zeta and Epsilon) is the best project keeping in mind that radio waves reaches earths surface properly so placing telescope on the floor of the desert is good idea and since infrared is absorbed by earth's enviroment so observing it from high altitude would be proper. Since both telescopes are placed on earth. This project would be most economic.

Pair A (project alpha and beta) is the second choice since placing the infrared telescope would be costly but may give good results as it is absorbed by atmosphere where placing X-ray telescope on ground may not be effective as X-rays are absorbed by earth's atmosphere. But still better than Pair B projects.

so I would prefer funding Pair C followed by Pair A projects