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Getting Ready To Map The (Visible) Universe
phanki writes "The Arecibo Observatory is gearing up to map the universe soon. This
article talks about the university getting a set of new radio recievers to complete the background work for the mapping process.
So very soon we may have the map for the Andromeda !"
Getting Ready To Map The (Visible) Universe is a bad title, as the word 'visible' in astronomy means light with wavelengths between ~380 nm and 780 nm, while Arecibo looks at stuff from 3 cm to 6 m.. Also, the AP news article repeatedly equates the radio telescope with a listening device, though it can map the sky at resolutions better than most telescopes.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
We'll probably never again be at a point where we say "What in the heck is out there?" We'll never again have Uncharted Territory. But rather we say "What in the heck will that look like up close."
This is only partly true. Many space objects are the next best thing to invisible. Barring a really concerted (and expensive) effort, we won't have maps of, say, the Kupier belt that are anywhere close to complete. Even closer to home, we only have records for the _big_ asteroids in the belt (and inner solar system).
Similarly, while we've found at least one white dwarf star in our local neighbourhood, others may very well exist that we aren't noticing - they're quite dim. Smaller objects, like gas giants ejected from systems during formation and drifting in interstellare space, or the myriad of objects in the Oort cloud, may not ever be found - unless an object emits a lot of light or is both large and quite close to a bright light source (like a star), it's lost in the void.
Think of our medium-term mapping situation as the equivalent of having the tourist brochures for the area we want to visit, and our current maps as being the blurb on the back of them. Still plenty to discover.