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LOFAR, the World's Biggest Telescope, Is Up and Running

Posted by timothy on from the can-we-call-this-a-meta-telescope? dept.

HansonMB writes with this bit from Motherboard: "Back in September, Motherboard ventured into the English countryside to listen to the universe. There lives a brand new piece of Europe's already-massive Low Frequency Radio Array radio telescope: a clever EU-wide installation that uses low-tech antennas and supercomputer-power data processing to transform into a giant mega-telescope, absorbing cosmic radio waves from the full sky." That was then; now, says the article, "In the past month, using signals from the new station, LOFAR has delivered its first EU-UK radio 'pictures.'"

15 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Not only that, but . . . by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not only is LOFAR up and running, but it beat out the competing project HINEAR, in record time!

  2. my prediction by deathcow · · Score: 4, Funny

    LOFAR will find a stream of information from an extraterrestrial source. When we decode it, we'll find that it's archives of extraterrestrial warez.

    1. Re:my prediction by Confusador · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To be fair, it's probably differently fascinating than we hope.

    2. Re:my prediction by outsider007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It couldn't be much weirder than the japanese stuff.

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  3. EU-UK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    LOFAR has delivered its first EU-UK radio 'pictures.'

    What the hell is "EU-UK" supposed to mean? Did the Conservatives pass a bill without anyone noticing or something?

    1. Re:EU-UK? by pipatron · · Score: 3, Funny

      So not only did the conservatives remove UK from the EU, they now cut it off from europe and let it free to roam in the atlantic ocean?

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    2. Re:EU-UK? by lxs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Great British tradition of considering themselves superior to and different from the rest of the world. (To be fair, that is mostly an English trait)

    3. Re:EU-UK? by xaxa · · Score: 3, Informative

      in which tradition? the Europe I know of contains the British Islands, and meets Asia at the Ural mountains.

      It completely depends on context.

      If I'm in Britain, and I say to someone I'm thinking of taking a holiday in Europe then it means I'm not going to the UK or Ireland (since I'd say I was going to e.g. Wales). I'm going to multiple countries, otherwise I'd just name the country.

      If I say "Europe is going to have do X because China's doing Y" that includes the UK and Ireland. It might mean just the EU (or EEA, EC, ...), rather than the continent.

      If I'm speaking to someone who isn't European, or if I'm not in Europe, then the UK is included when I say "Europe".

      Some British people don't like the EU. It's usually obvious whether they include the UK when they say "Europe", and will depend on whether they're comparing football to baseball, or regurgitating what they read in the Daily Mail.

      (FWIW, I've been "to America" four times. Two of those trips included Canada as well as the USA, but I don't usually mention that unless questioned further. Canadians might not like that.)

    4. Re:EU-UK? by chichilalescu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I understand it depends on context. But for this particular story, saying "EU-UK" seems kind of stupid. Everything started in the Netherlands, and it involves a bunch of countries from Europe. In fact, they're all from the EU, so that would be enough. I can see that this title is the submitter's contribution, anyway, as the original article specifically uses "EU-wide".

      Regarding your trips to "America": if you told me that, I would assume you were talking about a trip that included latin America. I expect people to use "US/States" and "Canada", or North America if they mean both (by the way, I assume Mexicans wouldn't like that...). If you were talking about visiting specific geographic points of interest, I would expect to hear "Rockies/Andes/Amazon/...", not necessarily the name of a country.

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  4. For actual information ... by dtmos · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... instead of a PR puff piece, see the LOFAR web site.

  5. Re:Good.. by outsider007 · · Score: 3, Funny

    The '70s just called. They want their sense of humor back.

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  6. Not simply in the UK by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 5, Informative

    If the summary had pointed us to the correct website the few who read the article itself would have seen the lofar isn't simply in the UK. The LOFAR is to big for that. There is one substation in the UK, most are in the Netherlands (since the center is there), some are in Germany, one in France and one in Sweden. These substations are assembled in a giant phased array by means of a supercomputer. This array can look at multiple parts of the sky at the same time while having a great resolution in low frequencies.

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  7. "LOFAR". ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, if it's " low frequency radio array telescope ", wouldn't it be "LOFART"?

    Don't blame me, but they're the ones who chose the name, I'm just sayin'.

  8. Re:Larger than the VLBA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In some ways yes - in other no. See here: http://blog.lofar-uk.org/2011/02/lofar-largest-telescope-in-world.html

    By the way I'm new to slashdot and trying not to reply annoymously by every time I login in the site dumps me out again. :( I'm Karen Masters - and I run the blog for LOFAR-UK (among other things). I wrote that post above.

  9. Jocelyn Bell by HuguesT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting to hear Jocelyn Bell in this short video.

    She is the lady, who as a grad student discovered pulsars. Her supervisor, Anthony Hewish, got awarded the Nobel prize for it together with Martin Ryle, but not she. To be fair, Hewish had co-invented the radio-telescope modality (aperture synthesis) that made the discovery possible. Nonetheless this spectacular discovery certainly contributed to his Nobel prize.

    Ms Bell is quite famous in radioastronomy circles and has done lots of good work.