China Commissions Gigantic Telescope For 3-D Galaxy Mapping
Posted on: Wednesday, 5 November 2008, 12:35 CST
China is employing a new telescope with a unique design which officials say will help them map the galaxy in three dimensions.
The unusual pi symbol-shaped design uses a fixed structure and two moveable, segmented mirrors rather than the dome shaped telescope that moves to follow an object in the sky.
Built by the National Astronomical Observatories, which belongs to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, or LAMOST, cost 235 million yuan ($34.40 million), state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday.
LAMOST has an effective aperture of more than four meters and 4,000 optical fibers -- the most of any telescope in the world -- that can simultaneously track and decode starlight into spectrographic data.
The telescope is housed in the hills northeast of Beijing.
"We have yet to shape a clear idea about our galaxy's structure," Chu Yaoquan, LAMOST project scientist and an astrophysicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, told Xinhua.
"By parsing spectra of millions of stars in the Milky Way, we would have a chance to get the whole history of the galaxy."
---
On the Net:
Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
Related Articles
- Smallest Kuiper Belt Object Ever Eyed By Hubble
- Mirror Cast For Mexican 6.5-Meter Infrared Telescope
- Very Large Telescope Uncovers a Topsy-Turvy Galaxy
- Two Space Telescopes Capture Amazing Andromeda Galaxy
- Galaxy on Fire! NASA's Spitzer Reveals Stellar Smoke
- Swift Telescope Sees the Pinwheel Galaxy
- USU Lands NASA Contract for Telescope
- Hubble Spies a Galaxy with a Black Eye
- A Tiny Galaxy is Born
- Hubble and Keck Discover Galaxy Building Block
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds