A Telescope as Big as the Earth 172
Roland Piquepaille writes "A week ago, seven telescopes around the world were linked together to watch a distant galaxy called 3C273 in real time and create a single world telescope. The data from these telescopes, which are located in Australia, China and Europe, was streamed around the world at a rate of 256 Mb per second. One of the Australian researchers involved in the project said that it was the first time that astronomers have been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart. He added that 'the diameter of the Earth is 12,750 km and the two most widely separated telescopes in our experiment were 12,304 km apart.'"
Were they looking in the optical range? (Score:1, Interesting)
Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Curiousity Question (Score:2, Interesting)
So, when measuring the distance between each of the telescopes, did he do it through the planet (diameter), or did he measure the distance across the surface of the planet (circumference)? Cause that kind makes a huge difference, and really screws up any valid comparison between the two distances.
~Sticky
/You know, kind of like comparing English furlongs and Australian wallabies. Just way too different.
Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why bother being instantaneous? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its not like it was a live event where you had to have it just then.