Satellite-Mounted Telescopes Get a New Focus: Earth

UF astronomy Professor Rafael Guzmán has spent his life looking up at the stars, but it took just one question in the spring of 2011 to shift his focus 180 degrees and send his career into a whole new orbit.

Cristina Garmendia, the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, was visiting the Kennedy Space Center to view the launch of a European Space Agency physics experiment to the International Space Station, but the launch was delayed for 24 hours. So a quick visit to UF was arranged, with Guzmán, a Spanish native, leading the tour.

Guzmán mentioned he was working with Spanish astronomers, mounting telescopes on small satellites to search for dark matter, when Garmendia asked the pivotal question.

“This is very interesting, Rafael,” Guzmán recalls Garmendia saying, “but have you ever thought about using the same technology to look down at the Earth?”

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