A device that is designed to discover the origins of the universe-built in part by UC Berkeley researchers-was launched in NASA's last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope Monday.

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a $60 million device set to be installed in the telescope, will allow the telescope to capture unprecedented deep space images, said Barry Welsh, an astronomer at the campus's Space Sciences Laboratory.

"It's about 20 to 30 times more sensitive than other spectrographs that've been flown," he said. "It's able to look further into the distance, and as you look further in distance, you look further back in time."

Scientists at the laboratory developed the spectrograph's ultraviolet detector, which analyzes light wavelengths from the device to determine the temperature and composition of faraway objects, Welsh said.

The spectrograph itself was developed by James Green, a UC Berkeley alumnus and professor at University of Colorado, Boulder.

The main goal of the spectrograph is to examine the origins of the universe, said UC Berkeley astronomy Professor Alex Filippenko.

"(It) is designed to study gas between galaxies and between clusters of galaxies, at great distances from us," he said in an e-mail. "By learning about the distribution of such gas, astronomers will gain a better understanding of how galaxies and clusters of galaxies formed and evolved with time."

Welsh hopes to use the information to learn about cosmic webs, which are longs strings of hidden gas left over from the Big Bang that link galaxies.

"The web is very difficult to see and detect," he said. "And you need a super sensitive instrument, which is what this is."

The spectrograph's launch has been delayed several times due to safety issues and computer problems, Welsh said.

"We have waited a decade for this, starting in 1997 when the University of Colorado was awarded the NASA contract to build COS," said Michael Shull, University of Colorado, Boulder professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences in an e-mail.

Berkeley's involvement in the device's development will help to increase its prestige in the field of astronomy, Filippenko said.

"The fact that (the campus) was chosen to build the far-UV detector for COS shows the respect and confidence the astronomical community has for scientists and engineers at (UC Berkeley)," he said.

Tags: NASA, SPACE SCIENCES LABORATORY, HUBBLE TELESCOPE