A 6,800-Mile Diameter Telescope Created
Posted on: Thursday, 12 June 2008, 15:00 CDT
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico has joined a network of other radio telescopes around the world to simultaneously observe the same targets.
The network of telescopes located in North America, South America, Europe and Africa simulate a radio telescope more than 6,800 miles in diameter, astronomers said.
The telescopes produce four-continent, real-time, electronic Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or e-VLBI, observations that generate images of cosmic radio sources with up to 100 times better resolution than images from the best optical telescopes, officials said.
The Arecibo team called last month's initial VLBI demonstration a major milestone, producing a data-streaming rate four times higher than Arecibo had previously achieved.
These results are very significant for the advance of radio astronomy, said Huib Jan van Langevelde, the director of the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe. It shows not only that telescopes of the future can be developed in worldwide collaboration, but that they can also be operated as truly global instruments.
Cornell University's National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center manages the Arecibo Observatory for the National Science Foundation.
Source: United Press International
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