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Gas Clouds As Giant Telescopes

Posted by timothy on from the repurposing dept.

allrong writes "Astronomers have found a way to harness clouds of gas in space to make a natural 'telescope' more powerful than any manmade telescope currently in operation. Read the press release or take a look at the images and description of the process."

4 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Practicality? by digital+bath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, they might be able to see things in super-fine detail. But how often is there going to be a gas cloud that acts as a perfect lens for whatever you want to look at?

    It's still a cool idea, however.

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    1. Re:Practicality? by pVoid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Follow the second link...

      They aren't looking to make nice Kodak pictures to hang up on walls. They are measuring x-rays and radio waves from very far away. And they seem to be extrapolating the values by using the velocity of the earth. The gas clouds don't need to be focused... the focus is done by taking many many 'blurry' images, and constructing a non blurry one. It seems the point is to actually catch signals that are otherwise too faint... rather than 'zoom' in more on things that are too small.

      (That's what I understood at least).

    2. Re:Practicality? by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "But how often is there going to be a gas cloud that acts as a perfect lens for whatever you want to look at?"

      Um... what don't you want to look at?

  2. Figures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slashdot links to story about some pretty fascinating science and the highest rated comment is a fart joke.

    Somehow I am not surprised.