Arecibo Telescope Gets Major Upgrade

The Arecibo Observatory telescope, the largest and most sensitive single dish radio telescope in the world, is about to get more sensitive.

The telescope in Puerto Rico was given a new device that will turn the huge dish, operated by Cornell University for the National Science Foundation, into the equivalent of a seven-pixel radio camera.

The new instrument is called ALFA, and is essentially a camera for making radio pictures of the sky. ALFA will enable astronomers to collect data about seven times faster than at present, giving the telescope an even broader appeal to astronomers.

Radio telescopes had previously been limited to seeing just one spot, or pixel, on the sky at once, but ALFA lets the telescope see seven pixels on the sky at once.

It also will map the neutral hydrogen gas in our galaxy, the Milky Way, as well as in other galaxies. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.