The baseline optical configuration of this European instrument is a four band grating spectrometer with MPI high resolution mode to provide high mapping speed, the ability to incorporate straightforwardly a photometric imaging mode, and the operational flexibility to tailor the spectral resolution of the science programme.
SAFARI will cover the FIR window that extends from ~34 μm (the upper cut-off of the SMI instruments) to ~230 μm (just longward of the [NII] 206 fine structure line) with a field-of-view of 2'x2'. Assuming diffraction limited performance, SAFARI will provide angular resolutions from ~4.5" to 19" at wavelengths not covered by JWST and at more than 2 orders of magnitude higher sensitivity than Herschel/PACS. This huge increase in sensitivity could potentially open EP research to wavelengths completely blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, but representing the emission peak of many cool bodies (gas-giant planets, asteroids and so on). SAFARI will have its major strength in measuring excess radiation from dusty proto-planetary disks in hundreds of stars at almost all galactic distances. It will also perform medium spectral resolution observations over a spectral range also rich in dust features, water vapour rotational lines (temperatures below ~500 K), atomic oxygen fine structure lines at ~63 μm and the solid state water-ice features at ~44 and ~62 μm.
Refer to the SAFARI Factsheet for more information.
The SPICA SMI instrument covers the ~12-36 μm with three spectroscopic channels: LRS (17-36 μm), MRS (18-36 μm), and HRS (12-17 μm).
- Si:As detectors are used for the HRS array
- Si:Sb detectors are used for the LRS and MRS arrays
Refer to the SMI Factsheet for more information.
Please send any comments or questions to naylor(at)uleth.ca