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eppur_se_muova

(36,227 posts)
Tue Mar 29, 2016, 06:09 PM Mar 2016

Earth-Space telescope system produces hot surprise (phys.org) {longest baseline EVER}

Astronomers using an orbiting radio telescope in conjunction with four ground-based radio telescopes have achieved the highest resolution, or ability to discern fine detail, of any astronomical observation ever made. Their achievement produced a pair of scientific surprises that promise to advance the understanding of quasars, supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies.

The scientists combined the Russian RadioAstron satellite with the ground-based telescopes to produce a virtual radio telescope more than 100,000 miles across. They pointed this system at a quasar called 3C 273, more than 2 billion light-years from Earth. Quasars like 3C 273 propel huge jets of material outward at speeds nearly that of light. These powerful jets emit radio waves.

Just how bright such emission could be, however, was thought to be limited by physical processes. That limit, scientists thought, was about 100 billion degrees. The researchers were surprised when their Earth-space system revealed a temperature hotter then 10 trillion degrees.

"Only this space-Earth system could reveal this temperature, and now we have to figure out how that environment can reach such temperatures," said Yuri Kovalev, the RadioAstron project scientist. "This result is a significant challenge to our current understanding of quasar jets," he added.

The observations also showed, for the first time, substructure caused by scattering of the radio waves by the tenuous interstellar material in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
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more: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-earth-space-telescope-hot.html#jCp




OK ... how about some radio telescope satellites in Trojan orbits ? That would provide a baseline of 2AU (186 million miles)!

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Earth-Space telescope system produces hot surprise (phys.org) {longest baseline EVER} (Original Post) eppur_se_muova Mar 2016 OP
I think I'm impressed. WheelWalker Mar 2016 #1
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