The New Face of International Collaboration

If you were old enough to watch television in the 1970s and 80s in the United States, you probably remember “Hollywood Squares,” the game show where celebrities sat in boxes and tried to answer questions. This form of communication has become a way of life now for international collaborations, although we may not be as quick with the one-liners. In order to keep making progress on important projects despite travel restrictions, we are using videoconferencing more than ever. In this image, you can see scientists and engineers from both Gemini North and South working with staff at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) discussing the planned updates to IGRINS-2, the newest version of the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph (IGRINS) currently at Gemini South. IGRINS-2 will be quite similar to IGRINS and will be available 100% of the time at Gemini, but will not travel to other telescopes. In addition to optimizing the optics for the Gemini telescopes, the teams are discussing a number of upgrades and updates to IGRINS-2 made possible thanks to advances in technology since the original IGRINS was built.