Undergraduate college students from the Enhancing and Nurturing Careers in Astronomy with New Coaching Alternatives (ENCANTO) program are one group that has carried out analysis utilizing the Arecibo Observatory’s 12-meter telescope and its new cooled receiver. Credit score: Anish Roshi
Constructed inside a pure sinkhole in Puerto Rico, the 305-meter-wide Arecibo Telescope performed a component in quite a few discoveries, together with the primary detection of an exoplanet. It was the biggest radio telescope in america from 1963 till it collapsed in 2020.
Nevertheless, since 2011, the Arecibo Observatory has additionally been house to a second, smaller radio telescope. In a brand new Radio Science paper, researchers describe how latest updates to this 12-meter telescope broaden prospects for future discoveries.
The 12-meter telescope initially operated at a comparatively slender bandwidth of radio frequencies, limiting its purposes. As well as, its receivers operated at room temperature, which resulted in noisier alerts and decrease sensitivity in contrast with telescopes with receivers cooled to cryogenic temperatures.
Now, the researchers have outfitted the 12-meter telescope with a brand new receiver system that operates at a considerably wider bandwidth (2.5–14 gigahertz) and is cooled to fifteen°Okay (-432°F).
In summer time 2023, the newly outfitted telescope demonstrated its capabilities by making quite a few house observations. These included detecting methylidyne emission from darkish molecular clouds towards the middle of our galaxy, observing a beforehand found pulsar, and capturing a picture of a area of magnetic exercise on the solar that produces intense photo voltaic flares.
With further enhancements deliberate, the 12-meter telescope at Arecibo might quickly contribute to a variety of future analysis and academic tasks.
Extra data:
D. Anish Roshi et al, A Cryogenic Wideband (2.5–14 GHz) Receiver System for the Arecibo Observatory 12 m Telescope, Radio Science (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023RS007839
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American Geophysical Union
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Arecibo Observatory telescope outfitted with a wideband cryogenic system to broaden its capabilities (2024, March 29)
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