Very Large Array Gets Expanded Capability

Active Seti points out a story about upgrades for the Very Large Array radio telescope. The improvements will increase the VLA's capabilities 10-fold, allowing it to "pick up a cell phone signal on Jupiter." Work on the 28-antenna array is already underway, and it is expected to finish by 2012. From Scientific American: "Data gathered by all 28 of the 82-foot- (25-meter-) diameter dish antennas are brought to a correlator--a central, special-purpose computer--which merges the input into a form that allows scientists to produce detailed, high-quality images of the astronomical objects under investigation. A new fiber-optic system replaces the older waveguide system for taking data collected by the receivers to the central control building and increases the amount of data that can be delivered from the antenna to the new $17-million correlator being built by Canadian scientists and engineers to handle the increased data flow."

Re:Very, Very Large

[Z00L00K]

Probably it will keep the name... It's just an upgrade. (Yes I'm boring).

If they were to rename it - why not do it in honor of someone instead. Unfortunately Carl Sagan [astro.uson.mx] has already been honored, but there are other persons too...

Re:Is this data provided to the SETI@Home folks?

[click2005]

SETI@home data comes from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico not the VLA

Re:27 or 28 dishes

[Dead_Smiley]

There are 28 dishes, 27 of which are used in the array and one is always out on service rotation.

I visited the VLA a couple of years ago. Those dishes are freaking huge and you can't get a good prospective of how big they really are until you stand under one. They had a small building for tourists and my friends and I spent about an hour inside learning about the array. They spoke of the impending upgrades on some of the displays. The original design left huge gaps in the radio spectrum and the upgrades are supposed to fill in all the gaps. If I remember correctly, until the upgrades are completed the array wasn't able to see even half the available spectrum.

It really is an interesting site and should be on every nerd's list of "Things to see before I die". =)

Re:Is this data provided to the SETI@Home folks?

[SETIGuy]

SETI@home data comes from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico not the VLA

Any SETI@home can already pick up a cell phone on Saturn.