Overwhelmingly Large Telescope Closer to Reality

An anonymous reader submits: "The 100m OWL telescope proposed a few years ago by the European Southern Observatory group (ESO) may actually be built. Currently, the largest aperture for a telescope is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at a 'very tiny' 16.4m by comparison. This monster is predicted to have a light gathering resolution of about 40 times the Hubble Space Telescope and a sensitivity several thousand times greater. Among many other things, it should be powerful enough to detect and gather spectroscopic data of extra-solar planets in order to determine the atmospheric composition and any signatures for life, like oxygen." We mentioned the OWL in this previous article too.

Comments

right on...

[australopithecus]

in case funding falls through in the middle of construction, the mirror can also be used to fry a turkey in under ten seconds...
pass the giblets.

Naming convention

[NicolaiBSD]

So how are we going to call the next generation of large telescopes? The Even More Overwelmingly Large Telescope? The Incredible Supa-Dupa Overwelmingly Huge Motherf***ing Telescope?
We are bound to run out of comparatives soon, then all we'll have left is the Largest Large Telescope and then what?

Re:Naming convention

[CraigParticle]

Well, here's one published example of one such naming scheme: the Super Huge Interferometric Telescope, courtesy of a few astronomy graduate students at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory.

:)

References for your amusement:

• link to ADS abstract, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.1504
• full image of the presented poster :)

Re:5000m?

[roalt]

Now how the heck would they manage to transport a 100m mirror to a mountain peak at 5000meters?

Easy, just find enough blonde girls...

Hmm.. math.

[plaa]

in case funding falls through in the middle of construction, the mirror can also be used to fry a turkey in under ten seconds...

The sun deposits about 340 W/m^2 energy on the Earth. Say the mirror is round with a diameter of 100 meters, so we get an area of about 8000 m^2 -- a heating power of 2.7 Megawatts.

Say the turkey weighs 10 kg and is made up of only water (a reasonable estimate) and is at 20C. Let's boil it up to 100C. The change of 80 degrees takes about 80C*10kg*4200J/kgC = 3.3MJ of energy, so you could heat it up from room temperature to boiling point in just a bit over a second.

So if the turkey is frozen, then ten seconds sounds a reasonable time. Just hope it warms up on the inside too, or you'll get a deep-fried ice-turkey. :-)

Sir, there's something wrong with the radar sir!?

[Em Emalb]

OWL telescope sounds to me like something out of SpaceBalls.....obligatory semi-OT quote:

RADAR TECH. I'm having trouble with the radar,
sir.

HELMET What's wrong with it?

RADAR TECH. I've lost the bleeps, I've the lost
the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps.

HELMET The what?

SANDURZ The what?

HELMET And the what?

RADAR TECH. You know. The bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps.
HELMET (to Sandurz) That's not he's lost.

RADAR TECH. Sir. The radar, sir. It appears to
be....

Jam starts dripping down the screen.

RADAR TECH. ....jammed.

HELMET Jammed? Raspberry.
There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry. Lone Starr!

Mod away

Yesterday, the Earth is given an expiration date..

[PinchDuck]

and we're told we have to move. Today the OWL gets funded. Coincidence?

Re:Not easy...

[troc]

Such large telescopes should be built on the moon. It's a great excuse to go there, they could be huge, we could build interferometers etc etc.

Troc

PS Just not too near the nuclear waste dumps that will explode in 1999. Erm.

Re:Active and adaptive correction

[troc]

Yeah. I shall write to Greenpeace now! And my member of parliament. This "sun" thing should be stopped before it goes nova. I mean it's giving us all skin cancer, it's why we need air conditioning - which contributes to global warming and has resulted in loads of CFCs in the atmosphere - which has resulted in the holes in the ozone layer - which is allowing the sun's HARMFUL rays onto our litle planet.

That sun thing is the main danger we face for solar-system exploration too, dammed solar flares would just cook an astronauts outside the Van Allen radiation belts. It's uncontrolled fusion reactors like these that will result in the eventual heat-death of the universe.

I think the sun is a Communist, Capitalist plot to sell more sunglasses. ;) (for the humo(u)r impaired)

Troc