Tag Archives: Radio Telescope

Astronomy News

Long Range Scanners detect…

  1.   This week’s observing highlights
  2.  Aurora Alert: Possible CME impact on the 9th
  3.   China’s Radio Telescope goes on line
  4.  Curiosity finds a meteorite on Mars
  1. This week’s observing highlights:

webvic16_nov11ev-534x360

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE from Sky and Telescope–lots of charts and daily observing tips for this week.

2)  Aurora Alert: Possible CME impact on the 8th,  SpaceWeather.com   A magnetic filament on the sun erupted Nov. 5th, hurling a cloud of debris into space. NOAA forecasters say the resulting coronal mass ejection (CME, movie) could strike Earth’s magnetic field on Nov. 8th. G1-class gromagnetic storms and bright Arctic auroras are possible when the CME arrives. Free: Aurora Alerts

china-radio-telescope3) China’s Radio Telescope goes on line:  The world’s largest radio telescope began searching for signals from stars and galaxies and, perhaps, extraterrestrial life Sunday in a project demonstrating China’s rising ambitions in space and its pursuit of international scientific prestige….Measuring 500 metres in diameter, the radio telescope is nestled in a natural basin within a stunning landscape of lush green karst formations in southern Guizhou province. It took five years and $180 million US to complete and surpasses that of the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a dish used in research on stars that led to a Nobel Prize.  (Meanwhile, the Arecibo might be mothballed for lack of funds, more in a later post.) READ MORE

pia211344) Curiosity finds a meteorite on Mars: The dark, smooth-surfaced rock at the center of this Oct. 30, 2016, image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was examined with laser pulses and confirmed to be an iron-nickel meteorite. It is about the size of a golf ball.   READ MORE

Astronomy News

The world’s largest radio telescope has just been completed

From Astronomy Magazine:

China’s 30-soccer-field-wide radio telescope will start the hunt for extraterrestrials.
By Jordan Rice  |  Published: Wednesday, July 06, 2016
ScreenShot20160706at1.38.57PM
The world’s largest radio telescope, FAST

E.T. may be easier to find now that China has just finished installation of the 4,450 triangular panels on the world’s largest radio telescope, the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). The telescope was finished nearly three months ahead of schedule, with the original ETA in September. With its enormous size of 30 soccer fields, FAST has taken nearly five years and $180 million to build.

So how big is it? One of the scientists that worked on building FAST told Xinhua that if the dish were to be completely filled with wine, there would be enough to give five bottles to all seven billion people on Earth.

READ MORE