Russian Space Telescope Lifts Off, Will Be Biggest Telescope Ever: (Man they are moving ahead quickl

reply to post by PhysicsAdept

You mean the size of the actual antenna? yes, by current standards is "small"
But I think the other poster thought the OP was saying the actual antenna was 30 times larger than the earth's diameter.
And what's actually 30 times larger is probably the distance between the earth-based antennas and this, new, space-bound one.

To clarify:
When you use interferometry (which is what this project is about) you need two or more "sensors" (be it light sensors - telescopes or radiowaves sensors - antennas) placed one distant from the other, so as to have a different angle of view of the object you want to observe, then you take two readings and "put them toghether" (You should read the links I provided in the other post to understand this, it's called "wave interference") and extract information from the resulting differences, so to speak.
The advantage of this method is that the resolutive power (the more resolution you have, you are able to discern objects separated by even smaller "distances", visually speaking) is related to the degree of separation of the different antennas, so the more and more far away antennas you have the farther and "better" you'll be able to see.

Hope it helps.

Drakus.

reply to post by anon72

Man they are moving ahead quickly

Yes! Our last hope are Russia, China, India and Japan.
S&F. Anon

reply to post by drakus


Thank you for you awesome replys/post.

I am still a little confused but I will work with what you gave and see what I come up with.

What would be better. The USA's James Webb Telescope program or this one?

So anytime another country launches a space mission it's going to be interpreted as NASA lagging behind? Well it's about time some other country launches a worthwhile space exploration mission other than NASA so I don't get the purposeful spin that had to be made in a great announcement for mankind. It's really unnecessary and says more about the spin doctors than NASA or Russia or any other country's space missions.

Yeah, budget cuts have thwarted several planned missions like this. Maybe this one can be expanded to many spacecrafts in the near future.

Originally posted by anon72
What would be better. The USA's James Webb Telescope program or this one?

The Arecibo telescope is probably better, in terms of sensitivity, and it's more of an apples to apples comparison with the Russian telescope because it's also a radio telescope.

The article is wrong when it says:

The RadioAstron telescope has a 10-meter antenna, a tenth of the size of the biggest radio telescopes on Earth

It's 1/936 the size of the Arecibo telescope, not 1/10 the size.

www.naic.edu...

The huge "dish" is 305 m (1000 feet) in diameter, 167 feet deep, and covers an area of about twenty acres.

The Arecibo system operates at frequencies from 50 megahertz (6 m wavelength) up to 10,000 megahertz (3 cm wavelength)....

The giant size of the reflector is what makes the Arecibo Observatory so special to scientists. It is the largest curved focusing antenna on the planet, which means it is the world's most sensitive radio telescope. Other radio telescopes may require several hours observing a given radio source to collect enough energy for analysis whereas at Arecibo this may require just a few minutes of observation.

The last sentence there is key to understanding the difference. The Russian telescope will need to aim longer at the same spot than the Arecibo telescope to get as strong a signal.

However once it does so, it will have better resolution than Arecibo. On the other hand, while the Russian Telescope is looking at one location, Arecibo can look at 50 more in the same time.

The James Webb Telescope is infrared, so isn't really comparable to visible Hubble, or Radio Arecibo, or the Russian radioastron satellite.

The radioastron will have the highest resolution, higher than any of them, but it's not really larger, it's still 936 times smaller than Arecibo based on area of the telescope.

good to see russia still kicking ass in space.
with all their resources they'll always be leading the way in space.

Originally posted by Alkimyst
Seriously, come on all you people bitching we're falling behind, i love the fact that you don't specify which country is falling behind, its obvious you mean us U.S.A, but cant you just shut up and relax there is a whole world out there, i'm glad for the russians we should be working together not, My country is better than your country, cause we has more missles and we also has, better telescopes, *ne ne nene ne*...

Seriously this is why we have such a bad name.

They already are in league with each other, you just dont know it yet.

I wonder if this could be a space weapon, or weather weapon too?

reply to post by anon72


Thank you for bringing this story to my attention anon72

I wish THIS kind of news would make the front pages of MSM instead of all the bull# stories that have little (if any) relevance to our lives.

SnF

Peace,

-AS-

Originally posted by anon72
Well now, isn't that special. I hate to say it but... Good for them. Well, actually good for Mankind.

I am a little disappointed that it is the Russians doing this and not the USA but... I guess it is all possible due to the USA blowing it's bucks on other things.

This attitude kinda confuses me. I don't know why you would hate to say good for them. Divisions only seem to hold humanity back. We are all human beings and should be proud of the accomplishments of our brothers and sisters regardless of where in the world they live. Were in this together as the human race.

The USA doesn't have to be the best at everything, that's just egotistical. If humans from all parts of the globe worked together as a team then not even the sky is the limit. The borders are just imaginary, we all share this earth and the problems and questions we face as a species could be worked on together rather than by one big-headed nation on an ego trip so bad that they are reluctant to even give praise where praise is due.

Who cares what part of the planet the scientists doing this come from?

Instead of it being a Russian or an American accomplishment why can't it just be a human accomplishment.

Its about time we united, our species is facing some very big issues that we all need to cooperate on. Patriotism only seems to separate us and eventually lead to conflict and even war. If you feel like being patriotic then be a planet patriot.

reply to post by polarwarrior


Well said polar!

I wish I could give you more than one star for that post!

Does anybody know the name of the telescope__????

excelent post!!

reply to post by polarwarrior


indeed who cares!! Yeeeey for humanity

reply to post by drakus


Yes! I am glad we (mostly I) have reached an understanding.

Originally posted by anon72
reply to post by boncho

 

the only Science in the world that can get 150% molar yield chemical reactions...

Could you please elaborate on this please.

Thank you.

That's a joke about Russian Science. If you hang out with Chemists or Physicists they have a whole bunch of them...

It all has to do with some of the Scientific material that was released during the cold-war, of course, a lot of it could have been propaganda, but Russia has has a major problem with pseudoscience.

In Russia even research institutes of an anti-scientific bent have appeared. Here's just two examples: The International Institute of Space Anthropoecology and the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics. The first of these managed even to get government accreditation with the aid of the Ministry of Science. And the second received financial aid from this same ministry for several years and from the Ministry of Defense for the well-known fraud with torsion fields. I want to note that Russia is no exception. For example, in the US a Maharishi University has arisen whose activity bears little resemblance to intellectual activity.

1



Kind of swaying off topic.


Regardless, I am happy to see the the Motherland launch a new apparatus in space. I think every country should be doing their part in space exploration, because it certainly is the final step/destination in our evolution as a species.

reply to post by LightAssassin

I wonder if this could be a space weapon, or weather weapon too?

Already the conspiracies start.

Actually the Russian just want to watch ET PPV.

Originally posted by anon72
reply to post by drakus

 

Thank you for you awesome replys/post.

I am still a little confused but I will work with what you gave and see what I come up with.

What would be better. The USA's James Webb Telescope program or this one?

Well, Arbitrageur already gave an excellent answer to that.
Both of them would be my choice, it's a really stupid step cancelling the JW Telescope, like THAT is what is draining the US resources and not the war machine....
But, back on topic, yes they operate on different wavelengths.
What would be really cool then would be to add the Arecibo dish to this network... And then put one on the Moon and one on Mars, yeah!
Well, one step at a time...

Originally posted by boydro
Does anybody know the name of the telescope__????

excelent post!!

It's called: "RadioAstron"
Not the most creative name, I reckon. I'll stay with "Soyuz" for now....
Or better: "Sputnik"... cool names indeed...

This turn out to be another fascinating thread.

Because of the excellent replys.

I thank you guys. Taken me to a whole new level of Space Exploration. Seriously.

Just to show how new I am into this area.... I saw the Hubble IMAX movie just last year. ( It changed my life.

I just saw the Hubble Telescope IMAX 3D Movie: worth every penny (2 ways)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Don't believe me. Just check out any of my post... in the space exploration forum. It is my favorite topic now-a-days.