The first radio telescopes were built in the 20th century, more than 300 years after Galileo first used an optical telescope to spot the moons of Jupiter. Now radio astronomy is making up for lost time, however. New Scientist showcases some of the projects under way this year.
On Monday, a radio telescope launched into space that will travel most of the way to the moon.
Although the RadioAstron telescope is fairly small at 10 metres wide, astronomers plan to sync it up with antennas back on Earth to effectively create a single receiver that will be up to 30 times as wide as the planet. At its best, the entire system will have about 10,000 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
(Image: Russian Space Agency)
Light from hydrogen that existed when the first stars and galaxies formed reaches Earth in the form of the longest radio wavelengths, which are relatively unstudied.
LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray), a network of antennas in the Netherlands and other European countries, begins its first full year observing these metres-long wavelengths this year.
(Image: ASTRON)
In May, the first of the Long Wavelength Array’s 50 stations began observations. Each station in the array, based mainly in New Mexico, will contain 256 antennas.
Like LOFAR, the LWA will study the poorly explored low-frequency end of the radio spectrum. In addition to revealing hydrogen in the early universe, these wavelengths are produced when ultra-high-energy charged particles stream through the Earth’s atmosphere and neutrinos slam into the moon.
(Image: LWA Project/UNM/NASA)
Later this year, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile will begin conducting early science operations. This long-awaited telescope will employ an array of 12-metre movable antennas.
The light it will study, at millimetre wavelengths, can be used to study star formation, the evolution of intergalactic dust over billions of years, and the dusty, planet-forming environments around stars.
(Image: ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
In January, a small ceremony inaugurated the construction of the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST. It is being built in a natural basin in the Guizhou province in southern China.
When finished in 2016, it will supplant the 305-metre dish in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, as the biggest telescope dish on Earth.
(Image: FAST)
