FIREBALL (the Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon) is a balloon-borne 1m telescope coupled to an ultraviolet fiber-fed spectrograph. FIREBALL is designed to study the faint and diffuse emission of the intergalactic medium, until now detected primarily in absorption. FIREBALL is a path finding mission to test new technology and make new constraints on the temperature and density of this gas.
FIREBALL is designed to
discover and map faint emission from the Intergalactic Medium (IGM). Emission
from strong resonance lines of abundant elements, HI Lya (1216Å), OVI (1033Å) and CIV (1549Å) are redshifted into the
1950-2250Å stratospheric balloon window at redshifts of z(Lya)~0.7, z(OVI)~1.0, and z(CIV)~0.3. FIREBALL
observes regions of the cosmos with known large-scale structures (traced by
galaxy redshift surveys, QSO emission and absorption lines) to search for and
eventually map emission from the IGM surrounding and delineating these
structures.