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Allen Telescope Array goes live |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Thursday, 11 October 2007
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 The expansive Allen Telescope Array named for its primary financier - Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen - was activated today. Currently comprised of forty two radio telescopes, the array will continue to expand as it aids in the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, otherwise known as SETI. With the current projected construction, within two decades the ATA will have increased the number of extrasolar star systems analyzed for intelligent radio signals by one thousand.
The Allen Telescope Array has been under construction for the past four years near Hat Creek in northern California and is the largest such radio telescope array ever built. A combination of bulding many cheaper small dishes (just 6 meters in diameter, as opposed to the 25 meter wide dishes of the Very Large Array in New Mexico, or the single 305 meter dish of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico) and advances in computer analyzation have essentially resulted in what is the quick and dirty version of a radio telescope array - much of the electronics equipment used for the ATA was made from commercially available products. The recievers and computers that will be used to control the ATA cost less than one hundreth of that used to operate the 27 dishes of the VLA.
With its expanding multitude of telescopes, the ATA has a wider field of view than any previously radio telescope, array or otherwise. Radio astronomers at the University of California, which has been collaborating with SETI on the ATA, will use the wide-field data gathered to produce what they hope to be the most accurate and detailed radio pictures of the sky.
With even just the forty two telescopes the ATA has right now it will be able to perform something that most radio telescopes cannot - comparitive studies. Because radio noise from the stars is very faint, telescopes often have to take long exposure studies of one area to get a clear picture - just like a photographer taking nighttime pictures. But by combining the imagery taken from multiple telescopes the ATA will be able to produce clear images with shorter exposures. Going back to the night scene photographer; when he take a picture of a city at night, any motion (like cars on a highway) turns into blurs or streaks, or is simply not recorded in a visible manner, while stationary objects (like buildings) shine through brightly. The same thing happens with radio telescopes - any changes that occur during a long exposure are usually not seen. By taking multiple and faster readings, the ATA will enable astronomers to see what they might be missing.
Hollywood tends to portray radio astronomers as people sitting around a high-tech computer-filled office wearing earphones and listening for the proverbial blip. It's simply not so. The ATA will be able to simultaneously scan several star systems through 40 million radio channels. Yes, 40 million. No human ear would be able to discern or understand any interpretation of the sounds - which would simply be static and variations on static. To analyze the signals recieved, the ATA will untilize custom-made software that will scan through all of the incoming channels for abnormalities.
The ATA's first study will be of a 20 degree arc of the center of the Milky Way, where it will spend several months testing the telescopes and software as well as analyzing the incoming radio signals for any signs of intelligent (and transmitting) life. After that study is completed, the ATA will begin a systematic survey of around a million nearby stars (the Milky Way is estimated to contain anywhere from 200 billion to 400 billion stars). What, if anything, it finds... well, stay tuned.
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"You say history considers me dead. Who am I to argue with history?"
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