You will find a FUSE model (1/3 the real size), a description of the instrument and the mission, and a link to the FUSE Satellite Control Center. You will learn the basics of how FUSE (and any satellite) works by analogy of its main components with human body parts and functions. FUSE is a NASA project managed by a University Institute, the Center for Astrophysical Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). A "live link" to the JHU Satellite Control Center (which is in Hopkins' Homewood Campus, in Baltimore) will probably spark your curiosity for space science. You can get an idea of how astronomical observations are done using a telescope in orbit.

FUSE will focus exclusively on the far ultraviolet range -- the realm of invisible light -- thus the challenge before the FUSE scientist and the Science Center is to make the unseen comprehensible. How can something we cannot see reveal the Universe to us? To explain this, hands-on interactive exhibitry exploring the electromagnetic spectrum and relating abstract scientific concepts to everyday experiences have been fashioned. These exhibits help visitors understand the electromagnetic spectrum (visible and invisible light), what we can learn from different parts of the spectrum about the composition of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, and what FUSE will tell us about the evolution and origin of our Universe, our planet and ourselves.

One of FUSE's major science goals is to shed light on the Origins of the Universe. With FUSE, astronomers are measuring the abundance of deuterium (the "heavy hydrogen") in a variety of astrophysical environments, from local gas clouds to distant clouds along the lines of sight toward quasars and active galactic nuclei, determining the extent to which stellar processing has modified the primordial abundance of deuterium, thereby providing a better understanding of the amount of deuterium produced in the Big Bang and the subsequent chemical evolution of the Universe. The primordial abundance of deuterium, a light element created only in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, is one of the three major tests to the Big Bang theory (the nucleosynthesis model: the primordial ratio of deuterium to hydrogen would be very sensitive to the density of matter just after the explosion), and yields an independent measurement of the baryonic mass of the Universe. HST is providing major progress on another parameter of the Big Bang: the rate of expansion of the Universe, while COBE provided information on the background radiation, the "crackle-hum" echo of the primordial explosion.

FUSE exhibits at the MSC tells you the up to date story about NASA's "Astronomical search for Origins", and how we are trying to better understand the origin of matter, and energy.

All the matter which exists in the universe was created in the Big Bang. Yes, but... all of it was in the form of a few light elements (hydrogen and deuterium, helium, lithium). Where did all the other chemical elements come from? The Oxygen that we breathe, the metals we make our tools from, iron that colors red spectacular rocks in Arizona and on Mars, gold, silver.... then carbon - important constituent of organic molecules - and silicon, nitrogen... uranium. They are ALL created by the nucleosynthesis processes that occur deep in the stellar interiors, those powerful nuclear furnaces fusing the light hydrogen nuclei and the subsequent products so to create such a variety of chemical species. In other words, the "stuff" we are made of, and we breathe, and we wear, and we eat... is 100% MADE IN THE STARS (except for the few "primordial" elements).