The high-resolution mid-infrared spectrometer (hirmes) addresses fundamental questions about the evolution of planetary systems. Hirmes is a versatile facility instrument for the stratospheric…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a grant for $100,997.00 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, a division of the Smithsonian Institution, to develop the High-Resolution Mid-Infrared Spectrometer (HIRMES) instrument for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) program. HIRMES is designed to provide high-resolution infrared spectroscopy to study the formation and evolution of planetary systems, including the distribution of key ingredients like water and oxygen. The instrument combines advanced grating and Fabry-Perot technologies to achieve unprecedented spectral resolution and sensitivity for far-infrared observations from SOFIA. This grant-funded research and development effort aims to answer fundamental questions about the origin and composition of habitable worlds.

The high-resolution mid-infrared spectrometer (hirmes) addresses fundamental questions about the evolution of planetary systems. Hirmes is a versatile facility instrument for the stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy (sofia) that directly observes key ingredients of habitable worlds, answering questions such as: how does the disk mass evolve during planetary formation? What is the distribution of oxygen, water ICE, and water vapor in different phases of planet formation? What are the kinematics of water vapor and oxygen in protoplanetary disks? In answering these questions, hirmes will discover where and in what form the raw materials for life reside, and how planetary systems like our own evolve. Hirmes answers these questions definitively by providing low (r~600) to very high (r~100,000) spectral resolving power over the critical spectral range 25-122 m. Hirmes combines grating dispersive spectroscopy and fabry-perot tunable narrow-band filters with high efficiency background-limited direct detectors. The instrument spectral resolution is designed to match the width of the spectral lines, significantly reducing the background and noise, to achieve the maximum possible sensitivity for far- IR spectroscopy with sofia. With this design, the observing speed is 100 times greater than what has previously been possible.