Overview


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SPICA (Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics) is a joint space mission of Japan and Europe, (which will be) launched in the late 2020s. The purpose of this mission is to elucidate "the process that enriched the universe with metal and dust and led to the formation of habitable worlds" by observing "metal and dust enrichment through galaxy evolution" and "planetary system formation of habitable systems".

SPICA is equipped with a 2.5 m telescope, which is cryogenically cooled down to below 8 K (-265 ℃) as well as with highly sensitive infrared instruments, SMI (SPICA Mid-infrared Instrument), SAFARI (SpicA FAR-infrared Instrument), and B-BOP (Magnetic field explorer with BOlometric Polarimeter). SPICA will be thrown into an orbit around the second Lagrangian point (L2) of the Sun-Earth system, which is 1.5 million km away from the Earth, and the best place to make the infrared telescope and instruments cool enough so as to achieve very high sensitivity.


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Pickup News

ISAS open day 2019 SPICA Collaboration Meeting SPICA2019 in Crete SPICA Collaboration Meeting SPICA/SMI Kickoff Meeting
(Nov. 01, 2019) (Oct. 28 – 30, 2019) (May 20 – 23, 2019) (Apr. 2 - 4, 2019) (Oct. 4, 2018)

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Latest News


  • September 24 – 26, 2018

    The SPICA/SAFARI consortium meeting was held in Madrid, Spain. For detail, please see "Pickup News".

  • April 2, 2018

    On April 2, 2018, SPICA Advisory Board Meeting was held at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).

  • January 22, 2018

    SPICA team members visited Centre Spatiale de Liège (CSL) in Belgium on January 22, 2018. » Read more

  • November 24, 2017

    SPICA/SAFARI Team visited ISAS/JAXA, Japan, on November 24, 2017.

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