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Largest Lens Ever Discovered
K Tanmay writes "A team of Astronomers have found a natural lens capable of resolving details as fine as 10 microarcseconds across - equivalent to seeing a sugar cube on the Moon, from Earth. The lens comprises of a cloud of interstellar gas, and works on the principle of scintillation; where the clumpiness inside a cloud of gas creates a density change thus bending and focusing the light. This technique, dubbed 'Earth-Orbit Synthesis', will be first used to study black holes in distant quasars, so don't expect spectacular wallpaper replacing images. There's also an interview with Dr. Hayley Bignall, an astronomer from the Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry in Europe (JIVE), where she discusses the concept of using interstellar scintillation to get observations that we could never measure from here on earth." Update: 02/22 18:23 GMT by T : That wikipedia link had led to the wrong place; here's the definition for arcsecond if you still want to read it.
and all that shizzle
word!
my first post with that lens? BECAUSE I AM FIRST
yeah.. next time :)
to find WMD's in Iraq ?
Probably not. Bush is more worried about stopping gay marriages, the visionary that he is.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
They still cant find SCO's chance of winning their lawsuit. On the serious side this technique is really quite fascinating and brand new, and changes a lot of previous conceptions about our universe. They even bring up the fact that this same scintillation is responsible for the previously unexplainable observations using VLAs on quasars. Now if they'd only consider saving hubble....
drunk chemists
can be found here, for those who don't want to wait for this lens to return something pretty...
capable of resolving details as fine as 10 microarcseconds across - equivalent to seeing a sugar cube on the Moon, from Earth.
Maybe they'll be able to use this to detect VA Linux's profits
Thanks.
Life is physics.
/me imagines a Beowulf cluster of these starlike objects.
The more you know, the less you need. [Admin added: from me.]
Oh, I apologize in advance for this, but K Tanmay has been busted by the Grammar Police for the following:
Semicolons are used for separating independent clauses, not dependent ones. Use a comma instead.
Again, sorry. This is just my...
[/pet peeve]
My other
you want company there?
for a super lens to see the hole in the US budget;
Does that hole have an accretion disc too?
Be sure to post some nice pics when it implodes!
(btw Some believe quasars are wannabe blackholes - they lack enought mass to be an actual black hole)
Or he may be brown. Oh, and a man.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
I am sick of pretty idiots, but there is only 1 girl at my local LUG, and I am certain I couldn't lift her off the ground if my life depended on it.
offtopic? mods on crack AGAIN!
Wow! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?!?!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
right. "JIVE"...uh huh.
is it april 1st yet?
So, what is this intergalactic pervert all about?
Brown Men can be racist too... FYI.
I don't understand the "separation in time" statement. Seeing that time travel doesn't exists, doesn't everything exist at the same time?