LOFAR, the World's Biggest Telescope, Is Up and Running

HansonMB writes with this bit from Motherboard: "Back in September, Motherboard ventured into the English countryside to listen to the universe. There lives a brand new piece of Europe's already-massive Low Frequency Radio Array radio telescope: a clever EU-wide installation that uses low-tech antennas and supercomputer-power data processing to transform into a giant mega-telescope, absorbing cosmic radio waves from the full sky." That was then; now, says the article, "In the past month, using signals from the new station, LOFAR has delivered its first EU-UK radio 'pictures.'"

For actual information ...

[dtmos]

... instead of a PR puff piece, see the LOFAR web site [lofar.org].

Not simply in the UK

[Neil Boekend]

If the summary had pointed us to the correct website [lofar.org] the few who read the article itself would have seen the lofar isn't simply in the UK [lofar.org]. The LOFAR is to big for that. There is one substation in the UK, most are in the Netherlands (since the center is there), some are in Germany, one in France and one in Sweden. These substations are assembled in a giant phased array by means of a supercomputer. This array can look at multiple parts of the sky at the same time while having a great resolution in low frequencies.

Re:EU-UK?

[xaxa]

in which tradition? the Europe I know of contains the British Islands, and meets Asia at the Ural mountains.

It completely depends on context.

If I'm in Britain, and I say to someone I'm thinking of taking a holiday in Europe then it means I'm not going to the UK or Ireland (since I'd say I was going to e.g. Wales). I'm going to multiple countries, otherwise I'd just name the country.

If I say "Europe is going to have do X because China's doing Y" that includes the UK and Ireland. It might mean just the EU (or EEA, EC, ...), rather than the continent.

If I'm speaking to someone who isn't European, or if I'm not in Europe, then the UK is included when I say "Europe".

Some British people don't like the EU. It's usually obvious whether they include the UK when they say "Europe", and will depend on whether they're comparing football to baseball, or regurgitating what they read in the Daily Mail.

(FWIW, I've been "to America" four times. Two of those trips included Canada as well as the USA, but I don't usually mention that unless questioned further. Canadians might not like that.)