PHOTOS: Getting Ready for the World’s Largest Radio Telescope
In Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers are preparing for a new array that will stretch across 10 miles
- By Leah Binkovitz
- Smithsonian magazine, January 2013
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(ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO))
They also probed the origins of life when they detected, for the first time, molecules of glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar and essential biochemical building block, in gases surrounding a Sun-like star 400 light-years away. And they discovered a mysterious spiral structure around a red star 1,500 light-years away—the first indication of an unknown companion star orbiting nearby.
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Comments (1)
That will not be "the world's largest radio telescope". That honor already belongs to the combination of Arecibo and HALCA, which has a baseline of 21,400 km. The honor of the world's second largest radio telescope belongs to the combination of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which has a baseline of 12,600 km.
Posted by JohnD on December 20,2012 | 09:19 AM