Extending the largest radio telescope in the world
Bielefeld University and the University of Hamburg cooperating with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
Bielefeld University and the University of Hamburg together with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON are setting up a telescope the size of a football pitch. The observation station will be installed in Norderstedt (Schleswig-Holstein). It will link up with the largest radio telescope in the world, the international LOFAR telescope. As a consortium of what will then be 49 stations, LOFAR can produce high-resolution images of extremely distant galaxies. The project partners will meet up at the Hannover Messe 2014 on April 9 to present the project at to sign a cooperation agreement for the new station in Norderstedt.
‘With LOFAR, we can pick up signals that are billions of years old,’ explains professor Dominik Schwarz. The physicist and his research group at Bielefeld University have been involved in planning the new station in Norderstedt. ‘My research group is studying the distribution of galaxies in the universe. With the new system, we can also consider extremely distant galaxies and study the rules by which the universe evolves.’ Schwarz and his team are working together with professor Marcus Brüggen’s team from the Hamburg Observatory that belongs to the University of Hamburg. These researchers are studying how galaxies have formed and evolved from the early universe to the present era. The LOFAR system should also contribute to discovering the first stars in the universe, studying solar flares, and measuring magnetic fields in the cosmos.
Professor Schwarz says that both teams have long been looking for a location in which radio waves can be monitored with as little interference as possible. ‘We finally chose Norderstedt. We measured hardly any electro smog there that would interfere with the frequencies scanned by the antennae.’
Radio telescopes can be used to produce images of astronomic objects such as the centre of the Milky Way or the dwarf galaxies beyond it. Such images cannot be obtained with optical and infrared telescopes, because clouds of dust and fog ‘swallow up’ all the light from these far-distant astronomic objects. Radio astronomy utilizes the radio waves emitted by galaxies, stars, and planets. These electromagnetic waves can be picked up with antennae, and the data are used to compute the distribution of objects in each region of the universe.
The LOFAR telescope consists of a network of antenna fields to receive low-frequency radio waves. The telescope operates in the previously largely unexplored frequencies between approximately 10 and 240 megahertz. This explains the name: LOFAR stands for ‘LOw Frequency ARray’. Two types of antenna are being installed in Norderstedt: rod antennae for frequencies between 10 and 80 megahertz and antenna tiles for frequencies between 110 and 240 megahertz.
Apart from what will soon be six LOFAR stations in Germany, there are 40 stations in the Netherlands and one each in Great Britain, France, and Sweden. The entire system analyses data from more than 10,000 antennae. LOFAR was constructed by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON. Many partners are cooperating in setting up and maintaining the system: ASTRON itself, four universities in the Netherlands, and twelve German universities and research institutes that have joined together themselves to form the German Long Wavelength Consortium (GLOW). The British, French and Swedish stations are operated by similar consortia.
Further information is available online at:
www.lofar.org
www2.physik.uni-bielefeld.de/3340.html
Contakt:
Prof. Dr. Dominik Schwarz, Bielefeld University
Faculty of Physics
Telephone: 0521 106- 6226
Email: dschwarz@physik.uni-bielefeld.de
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