Showing posts with label telescope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telescope. Show all posts

Australia Involved in New Telescope Technology

Australia continues to make great strides in new developments thus helping the world move forward. For such a small country in population terms it is in the big league.

CSIRO as always is at the forefront, leading the research team. Recently in Western Australia the SKA Pathfinder radio telescope (ASKAP) took a photo of the sky with much improved clarity and over a larger area than ever before. It is much faster as well.

Professor Brian Boyle said a new era for astronomy has arrived. ASKAP is part of the International Square Kilometer Array (SKA) with South Africa. Scientists are so impressed they are touring Europe explaining their results.

The aperture-synthesis telescope is the first of its type to be used. CSIRO's phased array has perfected the system. Performance is much better than current telescopes. Photos are created from radio waves.

A massive area of 10 square degrees is covered, which is 50 times bigger than the a full moon. The "snap" is just that: the series of nine overlapping pictures are taken and composed into one photos in one snap. However, the time to scan takes 12 hours. The telescope "freezes" in one position while the stars and Earth continue to move. Surveying of the sky is at least 50 times faster than current telescope systems and will be made even quicker in the near future.
Technology by Ty Buchanan
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Australia Had an Input into the Voyager Achievement

It is said there is nothing like blowing your own trumpet. Well, in some cases it can be very pleasing. The fact that the Voyager 1 probe has pass into space beyond the solar system is good news, The US must take most of the praise, but a small country in terms of population played a major part.

Australian scientists are base at Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC). The controlling body is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). This company is a big mover in world science. Many new ideas, concepts and discoveries have their origin at CSIRO.

The world's most advanced antennas are situated at the CSIRO base and they have been following Voyager since its launch in 1977. A round trip for a signal forward and back between the Earth and satellite is 34 hours.

There are two probes, Voyager 1 and 2. Only one is in deep space. Due to improvements in technology the antennas have been constantly upgraded as the probe journeyed further outward. Current technology allows contact to be maintained until 2020. It is hoped new improvements will extend this period.
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Conservation by Ty Buchanan
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New Chip For Proposed Square Kilometer "Telescope"

CSIRO has made a new chip for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). A decision on where the SKA will be located, Australia or South Africa, has yet to be made. The new telescope array will analyse data from small radio dishes spread over a 3,000 kilometer area.

Silana is working with CSIRO on the chip made of silicon-on-sapphire (SOS). It is designed for the mid-band range (500MHz - 2GHz). The unit is a one piece integrated circuit board replacing the multi-unit board previously used for this process.

The new SKA "telescope" will be the largest ever built and it will give high resolution images of distant parts of the universe. Though the array will evaluate a wide range of frequencies, the mid-range is important as it is the emission line for hydrogen which gives the distribution of galaxies and stars.
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Astronomy

Dark Energy Exists

Dark energy is no longer theory it is fact. Evidence from 200,000 galaxies confirms the hypothesis that dark energy is pulling the universe apart. It is a constant in that it pushes uniformally causing steady expansion of the universe.

Einstein was correct after all. He said there was a force pushing out stopping the universe from collapsing. This was known as "Einstein's biggest blunder'. He had to enter something into an equation which stopped the universe from collapsing. Though he didn't use the term "dark energy", this was the force he was talking about. He was wrong about the universe being static but he quickly revised his ideas when Edwin Hubble found that the universe was expanding. Gravity is no longer accepted as the force driving the universe apart. Gravity cannot push and pull at the same time.

Calculations show that dark energy makes up 74 per cent of the universe. Dark energy is not he same as dark matter. There is 22 per cent of dark matter out there. This leaves 4 per cent for all the atoms making up physical things.
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Science