Instrumentation
The JCMT has two kinds of instruments—broadband continuum detectors and heterodyne detection spectral line receivers.
Continuum emission is a tracer of star formation in other galaxies and gives astronomers clues to the presence, distance, and evolution history of galaxies other than our own. Within our own galaxy dust emission is associated with stellar nurseries and planet forming solar systems.
Spectral-line observations can be used to identify particular molecules in molecular clouds, study their distribution and chemistry and determine gas velocity gradients across astronomical objects (because of the doppler effect).
Read more about this topic: James Clerk Maxwell Telescope