FRIDA (InFRared Imager and Dissector for the Adaptive Optics System of the GTC)is an instrument being developed by a team led by the Institute of Astronomy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (IA-UNAM), in partnership with theInstituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the University of Florida (USA), the Engineering and Industrial Development Centre of Mexico (CIDESI), the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Marseille and the Astrophysics Laboratory of the Midi- Pyrénées Observatory (France).
It is an Infrared Camera with Integral Field Unit and it will be the first instrument to work with light corrected by the GTC's Adaptive Optics. The light will first pass through the adaptive optics system, which will remove in real time the perturbations caused by its passage through the atmosphere.
With perturbations removed, the light will arrive at FRIDA where the Integral Field Unit (IFU) will perform what is known as "3D Spectroscopy".
FRIDA will have options that are not available on other similar instruments like low, medium and high resolution spectral resolution.
This will mean that that objects that are very distant, and thus very close in time to the origin of the Universe, can be observed at high resolution. FRIDA will reveal what happens inside star forming regions and active galactic nuclei, and will tell us about their chemical and dynamic evolution of these phenomena.