system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What purpose does chilling the instruments of a telescope serve?

Let me preface this with I have no formal education in advanced physics or engineering or astronomy or anything relative to this question/questions. My background is in biology focusing on zoology, so please forgive me if I use incorrect terminology in relation to measurements or any other lingual blunders I may commit. OK, so I know I'm way behind on this one, but I've only just started looking into it. My question is about the Lucifer Telescope. Why is it necessary to chill the instruments to about -351 ℉ (I'm American and this unit of measurement for temperature is what's most comfortable for me in terms of comprehension. I'm sorry) to make near infrared observations? What is the relationship between the temperature of the instrument, the temperature of the galaxy/universe (I guess -455℉), and the ability to observe near infrared wavelengths? Is the telescope used to search within different wavelengths? Or is none of this even a thing and they're just chilled because it is a very high powered telescope requiring a lot of cooling? Again, I apologize if these questions are gibberish, just trying to find the right way to word this with such limited knowledge of proper terminology to convey what I'm asking has been exceedingly difficult. Thank you.
gpt
You cool the instruments to reduce the thermal noise produced by the instrument itself.  You are trying to measure very weak signals so it is essential not to have any background noise from the instrument itself. (The noise you see on a digital camera picture taken under weak lighting conditions shows you how hard this is to do if you are not cooling.) 

Some semiconductors have small bandgaps (e.g. high purity germanium) that need cooling to liquid nitrogen temperatures to function as a detector material, as too many electrons would be thermally excited into the conduction band if left at room temperature.