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Part Promotion of Scientific Research

Astronomy, one of the traditional fields of natural sciences, has been contributing to the systematization of basic laws in physics and other related fields, by explaining various phenomena taking place in space. The Ministry, recognizing the importance of this field and aiming at further promoting research, in July 1988 reorganized and shifted the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory of the University of Tokyo (an attached research institute) and the International Latitude Observatory of Mizusawa (a governmental research institute under the Ministry's jurisdiction) into the National Astronomical Observatory thereby becoming one of the national inter-university research institutes.

At the Nobeyama Cosmic Radio Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory in Nagano Prefecture, Japanese and foreign researchers are making observations of radio sources outside the solar system, the galactic structures, inter-stellar matter, etc. The Observatory is equipped with a large and high performance telescope designed for cosmic radio with a 45-meter aperture as well as five element interferometers each with 1O-meter apertures. This Cosmic Radio Observatory has produced epoch-making achievements, such as the discoveries of the protosolar systems resembling our solar system and of unknown inter-stellar molecules.

At Nobeyama Solar Radio Observatory, neighboring the Cosmic Radio Observatory, a radio heliograph having multiple parabolic antennas with a 80-cm aperture arranged in T-letter style, has been under a two-year construction program since1990, for the purpose of catching radio waves from the solar disk to study the mechanism of solar flare (chromosphere eruption).

In this way, observations through the use of radio waves coming from the universe has played an important role in astronomical research during recent years. However, since recent technological developments have enabled the construction of a large observational apparatus for the optical-flare observation field, the National Astronomical Observatory is now constructing a large optical-flared telescope with an 8-meter diameter. This project is on an 8-year plan that began in 1991 at the summit of Mt. Mauna Kea, Hawaii for the purpose of searching 15 billion light years away for space conditions at the time when the Galaxy was born. The Institute for Cosmic Ray Research of the University of Tokyo is making observations of proton decay and the neutrino, by the use of a Cerenkov cosmic ray observation apparatus erected at Kamioka Mines, Gifu Prefecture. The observations have attained epoch-making results, including the world's first detection in February 1987 of neutrino flux from the supernova eruption which occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This Institute, aiming at further promoting experimental research on cosmic rays and elementary particles, started the construction of a large Cerenkov cosmic ray observation apparatus in 1991 at Kamioka, comprising a 50,000-ton tank and 11,200 photomultipliers at the depth of 1,000m under the ground.