Posts tagged as:

radio astronomy

Understanding our gas-guzzling home: the Milky Way

“There’s a lot we still don’t know about our Milky Way galaxy,” says Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths of the Australia Telescope National Facility. “It’s the old forest and the trees problem – we have a hard time seeing its structure from the inside.”
Since 2004, Naomi has headed the Galactic All Sky Survey, or GASS, the most [...]

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No moving parts – a new kind of radio telescope

Far outback in Western Australia, at the Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory located on Boolardy Station, 315 km north-east of Geraldton, 32 tiles each carrying 16 dipole antennas have begun to collect scientific data on the Sun. At the same time they are providing engineering information to be used to extend the facility to a much bigger array of 512 tiles-the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA).

The MWA is designed to study radio sources at low frequencies, a poorly known part of the radio spectrum between 80 and 300 megahertz. It will be one of the world’s first telescopes without any moving parts. In fact, the array is ’steered’ electronically, which means the direction the telescope points depends entirely on how the signals from its stationary antennas are combined and processed.

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The hunt for invisible ripples in space and time

Einstein’s theories predicted them, and they could be everywhere throughout the universe. But they’ve never been directly detected. They are gravitational waves, unseen “ripples” in the fabric of space and time.

Scientists using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope are leading the way in trying to find them, by studying signals coming from pulsars.

Pulsars are the collapsed cores of giant stars that have exploded. Spinning at up to hundreds of times per second, they emit highly-regular radio pulses that appear to flash on and off like a lighthouse. And that’s the key.

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The sky’s no limit with ASKAP

The world’s most advanced “sky survey” radio telescope is taking shape in a remote part of Western Australia inland from Geraldton.

The 36-dish Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, features new CSIRO-developed “focal plane array” technology that gives it a huge 30º field of view. “So instead of concentrating on one small patch, we can cover the whole sky in a fairly short space of time,” says Dr Simon Johnston, ASKAP project scientist.

A large dynamic range-the difference between the strongest and weakest signals picked up- is another advantage. “We’re aiming to get a dynamic range 10 to 100 times better than CSIRO’s current flagship telescope, the Compact Array,” says Simon.

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PC technology drives a new revolution in astronomy

The technology used in your PC or PlayStation is also helping drive a revolution in radio astronomy-the replacement of custom-built hardware with flexible software and data solutions.

“Hardware solutions for radio astronomy have been evolving, but computer power has been evolving much faster,” says Prof. Matthew Bailes, Director of the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. The Centre has developed software systems that are now used in Australia and overseas.

The rapid advance of computer processing power and network speeds have been a boon for the High Time Resolution Universe Survey, headed by Matthew, which uses the Parkes telescope to scan the sky for fast-occurring short duration radio signals.

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Rapid expansion in NZ and WA astronomy

Western Australia’s International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is only three months old but is rapidly expanding—much like the early Universe. ICRAR’s scientists have ambitious projects ahead contributing to global science and engineering through the SKA.

ICRAR’s researchers will marshal new discoveries through large-scale neutral hydrogen surveys, studying the variable universe on short time scales and developing new antennas and other technologies.

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