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A Telescope The Size Of The Earth

Posted by timothy on from the why-not-even-bigger dept.

Neil Blender writes "From this article: "Astronomers have fashioned an Earth-sized virtual radio telescope that can distinguish celestial features 3,000 times smaller than the those observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The device, which uses atomic clocks and a custom supercomputer to link together radio dishes on three continents, is the most powerful radio observatory ever, according to scientists." Some parts of the custom supercomputer use linux and IDE RAID."

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Torn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Some parts of the custom supercomputer use linux : Yay!
    Other parts use Windows : Burn It!!!

  2. Yes, but by llamalicious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Remember, this is a RADIO telescope. Not optical.
    While I don't doubt the value a radio telescope might have for planetary research, I'm willing to bet you're thinking about something akin to being able to see the individual cells on Pathfinder's solar-array on the surface of Mars from a telescope mounted here on Earth.

    Anyone know the _optical_ resolution for maximum "zoom" on Hubble...?

  3. Resolving Golf Balls by Optical+Voodoo+Man · · Score: 4, Funny
    From the article:

    "The resolution achieved by this telescope is the equivalent of sitting in New York and being able to see the dimples on a golf ball in Los Angeles," astronomer Sheperd Doeleman said this week. "

    I'm surprised an astronomer would say that. Most of them know that the earth is round. Seeing the L.A. golf ball would be really tough. I don't believe they can see through dirt, and even Tiger Woods couldn't hit it high enough. I felt the bodies of a thousand astronomers flinching in their graves.