Dutch scientists launch world's biggest radio telescope

14 Jun 2010

1

The Hague: Dutch scientists in the Netherlands have unveiled the largest radio telescope in the world, saying it was capable of detecting faint signals from almost as far back as the Big Bang.

Dipole antennas of the LOFAR station at Effelsberg can be seen in the foregroundInstead of the traditional large dish, the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) system consists of 25,000 small antennas measuring between 50 centimetres and two metres across, scientists said.

The hub of the system is based near the north-eastern Dutch town of Assen, but the antennas spread out across the rest of the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, France and Britain, the Netherlands Radio-astronomy Institute said.

When combined, all the antennas together provide a giant telescope with a diameter of about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) making it the biggest radio-telescope in the world.

Scientists said observations made with the help of the radio-telescope will allow them to learn more about the origin of the universe, ''...almost back to the moment right after the Big Bang."

The data gathered by the telescope will be fed to a supercomputer at the University of Groningen for analysis.

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