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

[psychicsword]

Its the aliens messing with your computer. They don't want to be found.

Re:

[palegray.net]

Nah, it's Dr. Arroway [wikipedia.org] saving power for cancer research. She already knows we're not along in the universe.

Re:

[neumayr]

I'd say there're little aliens in your power supply, blowing a self repairing fuse whenever the load approaches a certain treshold.
Get an alien-free PSU, or one with a higher treshold.

Of course you could also reduce the load.. .o(a case light, gee)

Re:

[Lehk228]

you have a serious heat problem, probably an improperly installed heat sink.

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:

[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.

Re:

[budgenator]

The old cell phones punched out 3 Watts analog and are being EOL'd here on Earth, but we didn't find ET talking so we figured he must be using one of the new digital cell phones that pput out a lot less power so we need a more sensitive receiver to hear the same distance!

Re:

[Flapjack]

It's probably heat - I suggest downloading speedfan (a free utility) and look at the temps while SETI is running, if the CPU is getting too hot - like over 65C - you probably need to either upgrade your HS/F or stop using SETI before you cause permanent damage. Other possibilities are a bad motherboard or power supply (or just about any other component) but you'd have to trouble-shoot to find out.

Re:

[Hatta]

I'd check your RAM. http://www.memtest86.com/ [memtest86.com] or use any Ubuntu disk.

Very large array

[MortenMW]

int n = 0; while(1 = 1) { n++; int array[n]; } If you can make that run, then you have a very large array...

Re:

[sveard]

= or ==
??? What, this doesn't look like ascii art at all!

Re:

[Emetophobe]

"int n = 0; while(1 = 1) { n++; int array[n]; }"

Using an assignment operator instead of a relational operator, minus 5 geek points.

Re:

[earlymon]

not to mention the non-use of the {n=n*n; double array[n];} time saver for making n large and double for increasing array memory....

Or even "#include " and "double array[UINT_64MAX]"

Re:

[CSMatt]

int n=0;
while(1 == 1) {
    n++;
    int array[n];
}

Much easier on the eyes.

Re:

[calebt3]

Tagged: echelon

Very, Very Large

[markswims2]

If this thing is considered "very large" right now, would it be "very, very large" or "extremely large" after this upgrade?

Re:

[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:

[mijelh]

Unfortunately Carl Sagan has already been honored

Yes, it's realy bad he's honoured, we should burn all of his books and forget about him instead!!

Re:

[ScrewMaster]

Unfortunately Carl Sagan has already been honored, but there are other persons too...

Well ... there's me. I think ScrewMaster's Very Large Array sounds about right.

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Meh. Very Large Array by thePowerOfGrayskull! for the win.

Re:

[oduke]

No, the size/collecting area doesn't increase. Only receivers, electronics and data processing are refurbished. So it stays Very Large.

Re:

[belthize]

    The project name is EVLA which has at times stood for Enhanced or Expanded.

    Currently it's the Expanded Very Large Array as opposed to the Very Large
Baseline Array (VLBA) which NRAO also operates. NRAO also operates the
Green Bank Telescope which could just as aptly be called the Great Big Telescope.
It's a 100 meter single dish scope.

http://www.gb.nrao.edu/ [nrao.edu]

Belthize

So, it will now be HDVLA :)

[pavon]

Or perhaps, Very Large High Lucidity Array. The first telescope to peer into the realm of the gods.

Re:

[Don_dumb]

Wekk I can think of one [wikipedia.org] recently deceased luminary who was known for being bigger than 'very large', they should name it in his honour.

Re:

[nbarriga]

The name of the project is actually EVLA: Expanded Very Large Array

More interesting is

[Z00L00K]

The precision - Where on Jupiter that cell phone is!

Of course - even more interesting is WHO has a cellphone on Jupiter!

Re:

[arktemplar]

I have done some work on real time signal processing (the hardware side), I think that the kind of hardware on this thing would be worth studying. It is going to require awesome capabilities of course, but the thoughts of the slightest possibilities of a spin-off, for signal processing in wireless applicaitons/commercial applications makes my mouth water.

pre-emptive cellphone tapping

[petes_PoV]

Isn't it good to have a forward thinking government?

Even though there isn't a mobile phone network on Jupiter yet, they're taking the initiative and building the infrastructure to be able to tap Jovians' calls when the network does get that far.

Re:

[Skapare]

And ultimately, is that cell phone being used to plot a terrorist attack against Earth.

Re:More interesting is

[Alsee]

God I hate all the liberal bias on Slashdot. Two consecutive stories.
Bush shouldn't be tapping phones illegally! Waaaa! Waaaa!
Bush shouldn't be tapping phones on Jupiter! Waaaa! Waaaa!

In this time of war, I simply cannot be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.
If we don't illegally tap phones on Jupiter the terrorists win!

-

Re:

[drinkmorejava]

Not only that, they'll even be able to decrypt the GSM signal now. I don't think the aliens are going to be too happy.

Re:

[rasantel]

Steve Fosset, trying to call 911.

Shhh....

[DamienRBlack]

The earthling are listening, I have to go. Etgay attleshipbay eadyray. *click*

Re:

[zolaar]

Dammit, I thought we have laws against exporting strong encryption algorithms out of the country!

Awesome

[BigTimOBrien]

I was planning a trip to Jupiter next week, and I was just on the phone with Sprint asking them if they had any coverage near the Big Spot. Good to know that the people at VLA are on the job.

Re:

[insertwackynamehere]

Don't you get it? If scientists can turn matter into cell phone signals, then you won't have to take a DC-9 jet to Jupiter anymore. You can warp there as radiation! Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

Is that better than a fly in outer space?

[MrMr]

pick up a cell phone signal on Jupiter or
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827454,00.html [time.com]

Re:

[PhrostyMcByte]

Wow, that's a really old story! Friday, Jul. 27, 1962 The best part, though, was this one at the end:

Computers--one capable of 200,000 calculations per second-- handle information so swiftly that the whole process lasts two or three minutes from detection to interception.

Obligatory tag?

[Xelios]

canyouhearmenow?

In other news

[HangingChad]

The improvements will increase the VLA's capabilities 10-fold, allowing it to "pick up a cell phone signal on Jupiter."

The Bush administration pressured Congress to expand the Protect America Act to include Jupiter. Visitors to that planet will now be required to have a US passport to get back in the country.

Re:

[neumayr]

Yeah, the guy further up with his larger amount of arrays, each one a little bigger than the last.

expanded capability.. umm

[phreakv6]

perl or java?

But Schrödinger!

[slimjim8094]

My God men! Think about what you're doing!! By measuring so much, you'll kill us ALL!!!!!

Where will you run to now, terrorists?

[hlomas]

We cast our wiretapping net ever-wider! You guys might as well just give up now.

Very Large Array...

[lattyware]

Was I the only one to see the title and think music [magnatune.com]?

Re:

[bvimo]

yes

Not My Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

If my cell phone was strong enough to send a signal to Jupiter, I wouldn't want to hold that monster near my head. At least, not without my tin hat on.

Vector

[MT628496]

Was I the only one to read the title and question why someone was talking about an expandable array on Slashdot in 2008? I thought the Vector had been around for some time now.

Cell phone signals on jupiter?

[jafo]

Exactly who is expecting cell phone calls to be originating from Juipter? Is the government preparing to distract us with threats of terrorist activity on other planets? :-)

Sean

Re:

[captainwisdom]

Why does Slashdot encourage these people (by modding them interesting) with the endless Bush-bashing and quips about terrorist activity. Just let one of their smart-aleck, pasty-face asses get hit by al-quieda and the boys and we'll see their stupid comments stop. And maybe they'll take defending this country a little more seriously...

Re:

[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

Seconded

[localroger]

Since the VLA is in the desert you can see the dishes from a long way off. A REALLY long way. Like 30 miles. From far away they look really cute, like little HO scale radio dishes. And as you drive toward them they get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. They have one (a spare I think) they keep near the visitor's center at the end of a little walk, and standing under it you can look out and see all the other little HO-scale radio dishes and then look UP UP UP at the one you're standing

Not in a desert

[Saanvik]

I know I'm nitpicking, but the VLA is not in the desert. There's very little actual desert in New Mexico, all of it in the southern portion of the state. The VLA is in the high arid plains of central New Mexico, specifically the Plains of San Agustin. The reason you can see them so well is that this area is actually a downdropped graben [wikipedia.org] bordered by uplifted volcanic masse. When driving, you come down off the mountains on any side of the basin, and it's a long, slow decline.

The way I really understood

The Easy Way

[skeeto]

When I need to expand my arrays I just use realloc().

Re:

[belg4mit]

I suspect smebody at SciAm crunched their numbers wrong, here are some real stats: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/ [nrao.edu]

Re:

[belg4mit]

Also of relevance:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansky [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[SETIGuy]

So what exactly is SETI looking for at much greater distances?

Deliberate signals designed to attract attention, or signals that are accidentally beamed in our direction.

Isotropic leakage signals are too faint to detect. The garbage people will tell you about aliens watching "I Love Lucy" is just that, garbage. TV signals have degraded into unintelligible nonsense before the even get to the first star.

At the naming meetting

[theraptor05]

A: Well, what kind of array is it? B: It's...ummm... very large, sir. A: Let's name it that then.

Simple, really...

[gillbates]

They had to change one line of code:

/* This determines how big the
* telescope array size is.
*/
#define VERY_LARGE_ARRAY_SIZE REALLY_BIG

to:

/* This determines how big the
* telescope array size is.
*
* 02-24-2008: s. coder: Change array size
* for 2 GHz mod upgrade
*/
#define VERY_LARGE_ARRAY_SIZE EVEN_BIGGER

Linked list

[fph il quozientatore]

If you plan to add and remove elements from your Very Large Array often, a Very Large Linked List is a better solution

Can you hear me now?

[www.sorehands.com]

Verizon will be beaming their ads to jupiter. Will they get the same idiots as we do when we call customer service?

I find it hard to belief, pick up a cell phone signal from Jupiter, I still drop calls when driving on the 10 freeway.

Re:

[Saanvik]

Um, no, since the VLA isn't on school property. The operations building is on campus, but it wasn't built with state or school dollars, nor does the state or school pay to maintain it. As a matter of fact, having the building on campus contributes funds to the school, making it cheaper for you. Ask a researcher on campus how much of their grant money goes directly to the school. When I was there it was over 40%. I'm not sure if the NRAO contributes that amount, but they surely do pay to use the campus

And heard from the other planets...

[bornwaysouth]

Saturn: Ring, ring, ... ring...
Uranus: Frrthhh
Neptune: Download NepTunes now. Includes Digital Rights for those who are Armed, and Suckers Rights for those who are Tentacled.
Pluto: So we are not a planet, huh. Let's see who can out cold-shoulder who then.
Planet X: Can anybody out there tell us where we are?

Check the SAR rating first....

[moonshinerat]

With the SAR ratings of current mobiles I'd be suprised if a Nokia 6080 couldn't pick up a signal from Jupiter. Mind you my Motorola L6 doesn't seem to transmit any kind of useful signal any kind of useful distance...... it took me almost five hours to get a good signal walking through the valleys of Guam the other day.....

Silver screen debut?

[Aenoxi]

TFA claims that the VLA's silver screen debut was in "Contact". But don't I remember seeing Heywood Floyd sitting on one at the start of the film "2010"?
Or was that a different array?

On another note, I drove to see the VLA in Socorro a year or so back. Absolutely awesome - in fact, so good that I just had to go to Hawaii to see the very long baseline array's western outlying dish. Now all I need to do is get to the eastern outlier in the Virgin Islands and I can send away for a free box of cornflakes :)