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[music]

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[Narrator] Scientists already know what the 
universe looked like when it was a baby,

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[music]

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and they know what it looks like today. 
What they don't know is how it looked in

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its adolescence. But scientists may finally get a glimpse at this unseen

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stage in the development of the universe from a revolutionary new technology

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being developed at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. An instrument on a chip.

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This new, potentially game-changing 
instrument, called MicroSpec, is a

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far-infrared spectrometer that will be 
10,000 times more sensitive and

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infinitely smaller than it's predecessor. 
Normally the size of an office desk, this

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spectrometer can fit in the palm of your hand.

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Scientists use spectrometers to measure 
properties of light to identify the

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composition and the physical properties 
of the object being observed.

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[Stahle] And now we're able to integrate both the optics
which separates out the colors, what

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we're trying to measure, we're able to integrate them to very sensitive

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detectors all on a silicon wafer. That's the big innovation here.

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[Narrator} The MicroSpec instrument will be able to gather data from objects so distant from Earth that

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they no longer can be seen in the visible 
light spectrum. [Moseley] By building an

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instrument like MicroSpec and studying 
this era, where galaxies were beginning

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to form, gives us a very clear picture of 
how the universe developed into the kind

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of place that can support life like us. 
[Narrator] But in order to see these things clearly,

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the spectrometer must be cooled to 
temperatures close to absolute zero so

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heat from the instrument will not 
interfere with the incoming, faint

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infrared signal. [Moseley] We can get an 
observation in 10 seconds with this cold

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telescope that would take a year with an ambient temperature telescope like the Hubble.

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So such a facility like that is really a 
revolutionary capability.

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[beeping]