Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2016 September 29 
Posted on 09/29/2016 5:41:29 AM PDT by ThomasMore
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2016 September 29
Explanation: The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is nestled within a natural basin in China's remote and mountainous southwestern Guizhou province. Nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, the new radio telescope is seen in this photograph taken near the start of its testing phase of operations on September 25. Designed with an active surface for pointing and focusing, its enormous dish antenna is constructed with 4,450 individual triangular-shaped panels. The 500 meter physical diameter of the dish makes FAST the largest filled, single dish radio telescope on planet Earth. FAST will explore the Universe at radio frequencies, detecting emission from hydrogen gas in the Milky Way and distant galaxies, finding faint galactic and extragalactic pulsars, and searching for potential radio signals from extraterrestrials.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
Yes, Starship Troopers, Timeline are two that come to mind................
Oh, I left out “I, Robot”, which was a complete farce.................
When I was designing and building satellite tracking antennas, we would use the sun as a good radio source to exercise the tracking. Could not keep in on there long off course as it heated the feed too much.
Much more convenient that waiting for a satellite transmitting the right frequencies to come over. Plus, very easy to get pointed close to the target.
I wonder how many passing birds this dish fries when the sun is just right in the sky?
OTOH. I guess there might be some freqency-spreading advantages of examining what is in the aberration fringe area...
OTOH, with China's air pollution, that might not be such a good idea... '-)
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