Astronomers Find the Calmest Place On Earth 231
The Narrative Fallacy writes "Live Science reports that astronomers in search of the perfect site to take pictures of the heavens have combined data from satellites, ground stations and climate models in a study to assess the many factors that affect image quality — cloud cover, temperature, sky-brightness, water vapor, wind speeds and atmospheric turbulence. They have pinpointed the coldest, driest, calmest place on earth, known simply as Ridge A, 13,297 feet high on the Antarctic Plateau. 'It's so calm that there's almost no wind or weather there at all,' says study leader Will Saunders, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. 'The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers.' Located within the Australian Antarctic Territory, the site is 89 miles from the PLATO (PLATeau Observatory) international robotic observatory. The new site would be superior to the best existing observatories on high mountain tops in Hawaii and Chile, Saunders says. 'Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth.'"
For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Interesting)
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But the downside is that it costs like $100 billion to build and man[1] one there. I doubt the Antarctic place would approach one billion.
[1] Not sure our robotic remote repair technology is up to the task.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, it's on a mountain ridge. The smog/fog will go....down.
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I just love it when people pronounce as impossible something that's been happening for two years...
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Informative)
Since it's so calm, it'll just accumulate, then condense on the cold optics. Have fun seeing when your mirror's frosted over with an inch of rime.
Presumably you put the generator a sufficient distance away to minimize any disturbance to the optics, or to seeing quality. The area gets almost no precipitation and probably no animal life, so anything you lay on the ground will remain undisturbed. In this sense it seems like an ideal place to run an automated telescope, if you can get past the somewhat difficult access issue.
Regarding the "condensing on the optics" problem, astronomers have hundreds of years of experience dealing with this issue. The simplest approach is to slightly warm the optics using resistive heaters. As long as the optics are slightly warmer than the surroundings, any water in the air will condense somewhere else. You don't want too much heating, since then you form convective air currents above the mirror that harm the seeing conditions. However with some reasonably accurate temperature sensors and a feedback controller, the condensation problem is straightforward to solve.
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...Once the 'scopes cool off, there's no warping...
That heating and cooling (which would be substantial) sounds like it might do some warping of its own. Can anyone quantify that? Does Hubble have problems with heating & cooling as it falls in and out of the earth's shadow?
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>>>best spot for observational astronomy has to be the far side of the Moon... What's not to love?
Funny you mention "love" because there's no women on the moon, or on that ridge in Antarctica, which is a major drawback of accepting either of those jobs. Oh wait. It's just like my current job.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Funny)
Aw, the solitude's not so bad. The guy you really gotta feel sorry for is the midget they crammed inside the Hubble to draw everything he saw and drop the pictures back to Earth, message-in-a-bottle style.
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> there's no women on the moon, or on that ridge in Antarctica, which is a major drawback of accepting either of those jobs.
Don't worry, at the end of a highly paid 3 year stint, your replacement will arrive and you will be able to go home a wealthy man...
or will you?
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Funny you mention "love" because there's no women on the moon, or on that ridge in Antarctica, which is a major drawback of accepting either of those jobs. Oh wait. It's just like my current job.
Don't worry - either place will be so cold that you'll need your ID to tell which sex you are.
The absence of women will just mean not to have to contend with PMS on a regular basis.
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The last option is probably the cheapest, but it's st
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You could probably build a thousand very fine mountain observatories for a hundredth the cost.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:4, Informative)
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So there are cows on the moon now?
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:4, Informative)
> The moon gets as much sunlight over it's entire surface.
Not at the poles. In fact there is at least one crater near the South pole that is in permanent shadow.
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Oh, so that's where they're hiding...
Umm, right. (Score:5, Funny)
Anyhow, we're on to you, Mr. I'm-extraordinarily-antisocial Astronomer. We are not going to support your social avoidance issues with a multimillion dollar playpen. Just take your meds!
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So, no light pollution either. Double bonus.
FYI, a lot (most, perhaps, even.) of the activity in antarctica already is astronomy/aeronomy projects, so there is precedent.
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no light pollution either.
Well, except for those several months of the year when you have to contend with 24/7 light pollution emanating from Sol.
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It's also in the Middle of Nowhere. So getting to it is going to be very expensive.
I once saw a presentation at a conference on telescopes, in that case about a similarly quiet location Dome C [wikipedia.org], also in Antarctica. They had pretty advanced ideas, including cost estimates. The shipping costs of a container by boat and then by some sort of big snowmobile weren't that ridiculously expensive. I forgot the numbers, but it was probably several orders of magnitude cheaper than sending anything to space and probably even cheaper than loading a big telescope in the back of your Boeing 747 [usra.edu]. Expect s
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The place to build observatories has always been a compromise of "middle of nowhere" and reachable (e.g. from a city). Eventually, all of these observatories got swallowed by the growing cities.
Now that you can operate observatories automatically (remote control) or semi-automatically (submit your to the local technician or astronomer), building it in the middle of nowhere is a slightly smaller problem than it used to be.
Home on Ridge A (Score:5, Funny)
And the frigid astronomers play
Where seldom is heard a single word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
How often at night when the heavens are bright
With the light from the glittering stars
Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours
Home, home on Ridge A
And the frigid astronomers play
Where seldom is heard a single word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free
The breezes so calm and light
That I would not exchange my home on Ridge A
For all of the cities so bright
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You're awesome and shall ever be considered a friend of Gospelhead for this lyrical delight.
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Antarctica... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Antarctica... (Score:5, Informative)
The Antarctic gate was in storage after being retreived from McMurdo.
The original Giza gate was in use at SGC until it was beamed up into Thor's ship before it crashed into the pacific.
Then the A-Gate became the primary because the G-Gate was thought lost in the Pacific, but it was infact retrieved by the Russians and they ran their own gate program.
It was the A-Gate that was destroyed by Anubis. The G-gate was then purchased back from the Russians after they figured out that Anubis's gate-blower-upper-thingy was destroyed.
Yes, I'm a Gate Geek.
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See: http://en. [wikipedia.org]
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obligatory ... (Score:3, Funny)
Hey..I can see my house from here.
Calmest place on earth = Calmest resort on earth! (Score:4, Funny)
The commercial practically writes itself!
Ridge A villas, your ticket to paradise on earth!*
*Ridge A Villas is not responsible for hypothermia, loss of limbs due to gangrene, or Abominable Snowman attacks. Any lawsuit filed against Ridge A Villas must be filed in Antarctica county district court jurisdiction within 90 hours of the incident.
Re:Calmest place on earth = Calmest resort on eart (Score:2)
*Ridge A Villas is not responsible for hypothermia, loss of limbs due to gangrene, or Abominable Snowman attacks. Any lawsuit filed against Ridge A Villas must be filed in Antarctica county district court jurisdiction within 90 hours of the incident.
Pfft, you can disclaim whatever you want. In court, it'll be easy to show that Ridge A Villas are responsible for the Abominable Snowman attacks, due to cutting him out of the mascot deal and resulting merchandising royalties.
ice hotel (Score:2)
How long before someone does something like this; http://www.icehotel-canada.com [icehotel-canada.com]?
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Calmest place on earth
Yeah, lets all go there and make a huge PAARTY!
Chill out, man (Score:2)
Yea I think that I need some calm spot too. It's too hectic in Boston.
Miles? (Score:5, Funny)
Could someone convert that into a number the rest of the world understands?
Re:Miles? (Score:5, Funny)
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9.57443388 Ã-- 10^-7 astronomical units.
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Which works out at around 9.57443388 x 10^-7 AU when you actually check the preview.
Re:Miles? (Score:5, Funny)
Could someone convert that into a number the rest of the world understands?
It's 0x59 miles.
Re:Miles? (Score:5, Funny)
Could someone convert that into a number the rest of the world understands?
89 metric miles.
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Wolfram Alpha much?
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About 4.6 picoparsecs.
Australian Antarctic Territory ? (Score:5, Informative)
Located within the Australian Antarctic Territory
Note that the USA, Russia, China, and many other countries do not recognize this territory as being in any way Australian.
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Neither does then Penguinista Republic, and the other nations of the far southern hemisphere. But talk is cheap and land is available so these countries let the Northerners make a lot of noise and build their huts because it's too much bother to throw snowballs at them. There are limits to the tolerance that the Southern Nations has shown, so don't press your luck. In fact, the amount of fish the North is taking from Southern waters is a bit high and needs to be reduced. But go ahead, build your telescope.
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But France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom do.
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But what about Vatican City and Liechtenstein?
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And half of those countries don't even share a monarch with Australia.
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Quentin Bryce is head of state for France and Norway?
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Quentin Bryce is not the monarch of any of the countries at issue.
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But France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom do.
Not really.
Might as well be precise here: There are seven nations that are making territorial claims in Antarctica: Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, NZ, Norway, and the UK. NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD recognizes any of their claims. In particular, the claims made by these seven countries overlap in various places as they do not generally recognize each others claims.
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And the Nation of the Australian Antarctic Territory does not recognize the USA, Russia, China an... Australia... as countries! :P
Our ill-tempered super-penguins with frickin' lasers will CONQUER THE WORLD! MUHAHAHAHAAAA!
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Located within the Australian Antarctic Territory
Note that the USA, Russia, China, and many other countries do not recognize this territory as being in any way Australian.
Despite the fact that the USA, Russia and China are not even in the southern hemisphere!
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To be fair, the reasons for not recognizing the territory are ostensibly noble; they theoretically believe that the continent should be treated as a shared resource with limited exploitation (primarily for scientific purposes). Granted, both Russia and the US "reserve the right" to make territorial claims in the future, but to do so they'd have to withdraw from the Antarctic Treaty (which explicitly forbids new territorial claims, and explicitly fails to either recognize or dispute pre-existing claims). I
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Let me remind you how colonialism works. You get to keep whatever you claim and which nobody else can force you to relinquish. All pretence of civilization and legality when it comes to claims of "sovereignty" in cases like this are just that: pretences.
The emptiness of any "legal" claims to sovereignty over Antarctica can readily be seen by the fact that most countries ignore territorial claims and those that do have conflicting claims, yet it makes no difference. Nobody is going to insist on pressing
Wow, that sounds like paradise. Wait.. (Score:5, Funny)
Except for the fact that it's in fucking Antarctica? I think the researchers currently in Hawaii would be pretty annoyed to have to move. :-)
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Though I'm assuming it's nothing like Antartica, it looks like it still might get a little nippy at some of those observatories in Hawaii.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=19.825294,-155.472518&spn=0.005834,0.007521&t=h&z=17 [google.com]
Of course, I'm living in Minnesota now, so it's still probably shorts and t-shirts weather.
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Newsflash, plenty of telescopes already reside in Antarctica, some within walking distance of the South Pole (They had one installed). A small colony of scientists spend winters there (not permanently). The idea of sticking a research station with nuclear batteries in there is not out of the question. Certainly not if they make it automated.
It has at least one thing going for it... (Score:5, Funny)
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The guy who works in the office next to my brother figures out how to put fires out in zero-g. Fortunately (although not so for
Sign me up! (Score:2)
What about the Katabatic winds? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:What about the Katabatic winds? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about the Katabatic winds? (Score:4, Informative)
I would guess that it's at one of the high locations where the Katabatic winds start from. They're like avalanches, they aren't bad at the top, just at the bottom.
As good as ex-Earth? Or merely cheaper? (Score:2)
I wonder about the utility of this telescope. It is claimed that the images obtained will be 'almost as good as' those from Hubble. Perhaps during most of the year, but during Antarctic summer, the sun shines the whole day, so the telescope will be useless a great portion of the time. Or, maybe it's not simply an optical telescope? In either case, the cost of building and maintaining such an observatory are high. If it is to be manned, higher still. If it is build on the ice pack, it had better generate ver
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Also you realize every spot on earth has an average of 12 hours of sunlight a year. Just distributed differently depending on your latitude.
So you may get 3 months where it is to sunny to do real work. (time to write you papers) but you also get 3 months of 24 hours of operation during the winter. Between that you can ramp up and down. Yea it is bit crazy for HR but still you get the same amount of functionally as any other earth telescope.
No staff: remote control. (Score:2)
> Yea it is bit crazy for HR...
There is already one remote-controlled telescope in Antarctica. No need for permanent staff. Astronomy has not been done by looking through eyepieces for quite a while.
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There is a perpetual shortage of good viewing time on high resolution instruments, so the more we can add at reasonable cost the better. Space observatories are extremely expensive, so any close runner-up on Earth will be an excellent deal.
This looks like an excellent site for one or more automated observatories - think of it as a cheap Hubble on Earth. Servicing will be available when needed (repairs and upgrades) for negligible cost (compared to the cost of shuttle launch ), and building the observatory t
One drawback (Score:2, Redundant)
It can only see half the sky due to being very close to the South Pole. Near-equatorial telescopes can see 80% or more of the sky over the course of the year. A polar telescope would be useful for statistical surveys, etc. but would miss, on average, 50% of observations unique to one point in the sky.
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The sky coverage is a compromise, but a good one, since it includes the very interesting southern Milky Way. They should be able to do some amazing science with this thing!
How much of the year can they use this thing? Midnight sun and all that? The South Pole is astronomically dark for 6 weeks, then it's twilight or daylight the entire rest of the year.
...laura
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> It can only see half the sky due to being very close to the South Pole.
For deep sky work that doesn't matter. The universe is the same in every direction when you look out far enough.
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> Granted not a lot of astronomical phenomena happen on such short timescales...
The advantage of 24-7 observing time is the ability to do long period integration.
Coordinates, please (Score:2)
So ... where is it?
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It's 89 km from Plato [slashdot.org] - a Chinese-Australian robotic observatory at "Dome A".
That's at 80 deg 22' S 77 deg 21' E [unsw.edu.au] and 4093 meters above sea level.
I have to wonder if it's that much better than PLATO that there is a need for 2 observatories 89 km apart.
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Sorry - it's 144 km from Plato. Blasted English units.
Meh- (Score:2)
Dandelions! (Score:2)
I thought the calmest place on earth was in the Dandelion Patch. Time for a break!
No wind or weather? (Score:2)
How can a place have no weather? Every single place on the surface planet has weather of some description all the time.
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California doesn't have weather. It has climate.
Heat plume from equipment? (Score:2)
I assume there's a plan for this- anyone know?
no wind or weather there at all (Score:3, Funny)
No weather at all? Wonder what those people will talk about:
- God it's so nothing out there!
- You tell me, I've been out there the whole morning! I can't stand this nothingness anymore...
- Hey, have you seen the snow today? It's kind of yellower today isn't it?
Former Calmest Place (Score:3, Funny)
...because now that it's set a record, it will be full of tourists.
aurora borealis? aka, aurora australis (Score:3, Interesting)
(southern lights)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy) [wikipedia.org]
wouldn't these auroras make skygazing in antarctica like trying to stargaze in the middle of new york city? (light pollution)
i know they don't go all the time, but at that far south, wouldn't you get them pretty frequently?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)#Frequency_of_occurrence [wikipedia.org]
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The calmest place on earth, duh. Unfortunately it won't help you observe the stars and galaxies unless you mix in some psilocybin or LSD or what have you.
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If you spot reading slashdot, you might find the time and focus to finish your dissertation. Seriously, reading Slashdot too much serves to create an Attention Defecit Disorder. Now if....whoo what's that! I found another open wifi network!...now where was I? Yea...Slashdot is like a bazaar of ideas, but you just went out for milk and bread.
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If you spot reading slashdot, you might find the time and focus to finish your dissertation. Seriously, reading Slashdot too much serves to create an Attention Defecit Disorder. Now if....whoo what's that! I found another open wifi network!...now where was I? Yea...Slashdot is like a bazaar of ideas, but you just went out for milk and bread.
Isn't that what MODERATION is for?
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Yeah, it's perfectly calm, as long as you ignore the triangular striated prints in the snow. And the disappearing sled dogs.
Land of the midnight sun? (Score:2)
Aren't the poles the Land of the Midnight Sun [wikipedia.org]. That means that during the antarctic 'summer', they can't do (any?) observations for a period of consecutive days, and have very short nights during a fairly long period surrounding the summer solstice? I mean, I suppose the upshot of that is there is also a period of continuous days of darkness at the winter solstice, and very long nights for a fairly long period surrounding it.
Perhaps the air down there is so pure that, as long as the telescope isn't aimed to