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Lost Cause said:
Has anyone ever watched the SRBs from launch to their splashdown in the ocean?
Click to expand...
We watched that a couple days ago, the kidlet and I loved that one. :D



Do they think they could spare a little ammonium perchlorate for me?
 
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Official Countdown Began Sunday Night
Launch Date: Aug. 8
Launch Time: 6:36 p.m. EDT

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/170421main_118crewarrival2.jpg

08.05.07 - 8 p.m. EDT
In Firing Room 4 of the launch control center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the countdown clock began ticking backward on schedule for a launch at 6:36 p.m. on Wednesday.

All countdown preparations are proceeding as planned at Launch Pad 39-A to meet an on-time launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour.

The weather forecast for launch day looks promising. Currently, there's only a 30% chance that isolated showers or anvil clouds could prevent launch. This prediction remains the same in the event of a 24-hour delay.

The flight's seven astronauts are staying busy with final launch preparations. On Sunday morning, Commander Scott Kelly and Pilot Charlie Hobaugh made several practice landings at the Shuttle Landing Facility in the shuttle training aircraft, a modified Gulfstream II jet that mimics the flying characteristics of a space shuttle orbiter.

The 22nd flight to the International Space Station, STS-118 will be the first flight for Endeavour since 2002, and the first mission for Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, the teacher-turned-astronaut whose association with NASA began more than 20 years ago.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/180704main_sts118s002_small.jpg
 
Correct~

Ms Morgan, 55, originally trained at Nasa as a back-up for Christa McAuliffe, who was selected for Nasa's Teacher in Space programme, announced by President Reagan in the 1980s.

McAuliffe and six other astronauts were killed in 1986 aboard the shuttle Challenger, when a leaky booster rocket triggered an explosion 73 seconds into launch.

After the incident, Nasa asked Ms Morgan to stay on as its Teacher in Space representative and pledged a shuttle flight to fulfil McAuliffe's educational agenda.

But then the agency also banned civilians from flying in its spacecraft, so Ms Morgan had to become a fully trained astronaut, joining Nasa's corps in 1998.

She will operate a robot arm in space and, if time permits, speak with school children at locations around the US via a link-up.

Nasa hopes to stretch the mission from 11 days to 14 days, with help from a new system fitted aboard the shuttle.

The system will convert and transfer power from the station to the shuttle, allowing the shuttle to remain docked longer than ever before.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/070803_morgan_mcauliffe_02.jpg
 
cool ... I hadn't realized NASA had not lifted the ban on civilians on NASA flights.
 
New Shuttle Smell~

Endeavour, the last addition to the orbiter fleet, is named after the first ship commanded by James Cook, the 18th century British explorer, navigator and astronomer.

The Space Shuttle orbiter Endeavour was delivered to Kennedy Space Center in May 1991, and flew its first mission, highlighted by the dramatic rescue of a stranded communications satellite, a year later in May 1992.

In 2005:
The orbiter Endeavour underwent a 24-month Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) at the Kennedy Space Center. Engineers and technicians spent 900,000 hours performing 124 modifications. These included recommended return to flight safety modifications, bonding more than 1,000 thermal protection system tiles and inspecting more than 150 miles of wiring. Eighty five of the modifications are complete and 39 are still underway. Two of the more extensive modifications included the addition of the multi-functional electronic display system (glass cockpit), and the three-string global positioning system. (Reference NASA Release 05-336).

:nana:
 
The Perseids meteor shower is this Sunday evening. It should be a good show. The sky will be quite dark.
 
Spoke/posted to Q about when I met Buzz Aldrin a couple of years ago, hmmn 4 now I guess. Here is the link . As an Australian it's a little less usual to have done so. He was charming , as was his wife , though she did have that french toy poodle thing going on.

What's the verdict these days , seems there was debate about the authenticity of that mission.
 
Last edited:
We have a launch. external tank has been dropped and they will be in orbit shortly.
 
Thanks to the EPA, we have another shuttle crew in danger~

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/070810_sts118_backflip_02.jpg

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/070810_tile2_02.jpg
<A view of damage to heat-resistant tiles on the underside of the space shuttle Endeavour, 4 feet (1.2 meters) behind the starboard wheel cover. Mission managers are concerned the damage may pose a risk to the shuttle's STS-118 crew during reentry. Credit: NASA>

HOUSTON - Damage found on the belly of NASA's space shuttle Endeavour has prompted plans for an extra heat shield inspection, mission managers said Friday.

Mission management team chairman John Shannon said three bits of debris, believed to be foam, struck the orbiter's heat-resistant tiles during Endeavour's Wednesday launch. Radar data acquired by Kennedy Space Center shows that a "spray" of debris 58 seconds into flight, however, appears to be ice.

"Yesterday we were thinking it might be foam, today that radar data said it looked like ice," Shannon said. "That perked up our ears a little bit because ice is much more dense, of course, than foam and can do much more damage to tile."

Mission Control notified the STS-118 astronaut crew of the need for an inspection shortly after the briefing here at Johnson Space Center (JSC).

"Thanks for the heads up," Endeavour shuttle commander Scott Kelly replied.

The astronauts, who are now docked with the International Space Station (ISS), will use a 50-foot (15-meter) sensor-tipped extension boom to Endeavour's robotic arm to get a closer look at the damaged area on Sunday around 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 GMT).

Small gouge

Images of the orbiter's thermal shield revealed damage to a six-by-six-inch (15-centimeter-by-15-centimeter) heat-resistant tile, located four feet (1.2 meters) behind the starboard side's retractable wheel cover. Shannon described the damage as a three-inch-by-three-inch (eight-centimeter-by-eight-centimeter) gouge, but noted that mission engineers will not be able to determine the full extent of the damage until after the crew's closer inspection.

"We have a rich flight history of tile damage, some of which is more significant looking than what we have right here," Shannon said. "Instead of guessing, we'll go and get the right characterization of what exactly the damage is."

Engineers will assess the damage with computer models of Endeavour's reentry to Earth, which Shannon said is extremely precise.

Shannon said the damage was discovered after reviewing 296 images of Endeavour's underbelly taken today by International Space Station (ISS) crew, shortly before Endeavour docked with the orbital laboratory at 1:02 p.m. EDT (1702 GMT). Temperatures in the area of damage can reach almost 2300 degrees Fahrenheit (1260 degrees Celsius) during reentry to Earth.

If debris penetrates deep enough into the heat-resistant tile, the orbiter's thin aluminum skin could be compromised from the heat and pose a threat to the crew on board. If that is the case with Endeavour's damage, Shannon said, there is recourse.

"We have three different ways that we can fix tile that we feel very confident in," Shannon said. Although he said it's too soon to know if repair is even necessary, astronauts could use a heat-resistant paint, a drill-on patch or a thick "goop" as a temporary fix.

NASA has paid close attention to the integrity of its shuttle heat shields since 2003, when a 1.67-pound (757-gram) chunk of foam insulation struck the Columbia orbiter's heat shield during liftoff and led to the loss of its seven-astronaut crew.

And another problem with space junk-

Close encounter

In addition to the tile damage, STS-118 mission managers said there was a close encounter with a spent rocket occurred about one and a half hours after the 6:36 p.m. EDT (2036 GMT) launch of Endeavour.

Matt Abbott, lead shuttle flight director for the current mission, said the encounter was surprising but didn't require an emergency maneuver to avoid hitting the object.

"There are times when really doing nothing is the right thing to do," Abbot said. "We do everything we can to make sure that the vehicle is protected."

In this case, the 32-year-old Delta 2 rocket came within one to two kilometers (0.6 miles to 1.2 miles), which Abbott said did not pose an immediate danger to Endeavour's crew.

http://www******.com/missionlaunches/070810_sts118_tileupdate.html
 
Receipe for disaster..

NASA never acknowledged that its environmentally friendly, more brittle foam had anything to do with the foam sheering problem, the link had been well documented within weeks of the Columbia disaster.

In February 2003, for instance, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

"NASA engineers have known for at least five years that insulating foam could peel off the space shuttle's external fuel tanks and damage the vital heat-protecting tiles that the space agency says were the likely 'root cause' of Saturday's shuttle disaster."

In a 1997 report, NASA mechanical systems engineer Greg Katnik "noted that the 1997 mission, STS-87, was the first to use a new method of 'foaming' the tanks, one designed to address NASA's goal of using environmentally friendly products. The shift came as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordering many industries to phase out the use of Freon, an aerosol propellant linked to ozone depletion and global warming," the Inquirer said.

Before the environmentally friendly new insulation was used, about 40 of the spacecraft's 26,000 ceramic tiles would sustain damage in missions. However, Katnik reported that NASA engineers found 308 "hits" to Columbia after a 1997 flight.

A "massive material loss on the side of the external tank" caused much of the damage, Katnik wrote in an article in Space Team Online.

He called the damage "significant." One hundred thirty-two hits were bigger than 1 inch in diameter, and some slashes were as long as 15 inches.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/28/93055.shtml

RIP Columbia :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose:
https://ssl.catalog.com/~ultimax.com/pic/pix4WPs/fram4924.jpg
 
Those hungry hungry Quasars....

Quasars Caught Eating Galaxies

By Ben Mauk, Special to SPACE.com

posted: 10 August 2007 02:54 pm ET

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/070810_galaxy_quasar_01.jpg
Top: A gas-rich galaxy collides with a giant galaxy, producing a quasar. Credit: Computer simulation by Joshua Barnes, University of Hawaii. Bottom: Artist's conception of the heart of a quasar, a massive black hole that sucks in a vortex of gas. Hawaii astronomers found that quasars shine because a giant galaxy with a large black hole collides with a gas-rich galaxy that feeds the black hole. Credit: A. Simonnet, Sonoma State University, NASA

Astronomers have found the first direct evidence that some quasars fuel their bright energy emissions by feeding on gas from external sources, probably neighboring galaxies.

Hai Fu and Alan Stockton of the University of Hawaii, using the Hubble Space Telescope, observed that the chemistry of the vortex of gas responsible for a quasar's brightness (which matches that of a trillion suns) suggests that the gas comes not from the massive galaxy containing the quasar, but from a nearby smaller galaxy in the process of merging with the large one.

Outed by radio waves

Discovered in 1961, quasars consist of supermassive black holes, each surrounded by a vortex of gas. The gas spins with increasing speed as it falls toward the black hole and experiences ever greater gravitational pull. The spinning causes the gas vortex's temperature to rise until it shines hundreds of times brighter than the galaxy in which it resides.

Quasars first attracted notice for their odd output of radio waves, which at the time were thought to accompany only certain exploding galaxies and supernova remnants. The radio waves enabled scientists to determine that these objects were not stars, as had been thought, but rather powerful emissions from extremely distant galaxies.

Some of the light emitted by older quasars dates back to the early days of the universe. Research into quasars has helped astronomers develop a picture of galaxy formation in the first billion years after the Big Bang.

Though the mechanics of quasars had been observed indirectly, Fu and Stockton sought to discover the nature of the gas that fuels these hungry titans.

Graduate student Fu noticed that among certain quasars, those with an extended region of gaseous emissions as large as the galaxy itself, gas near the black hole was unusually low in the heavier elements and made up almost purely of hydrogen and helium.

"[Fu] approached me, and we looked at a few other objects together and saw the same thing," Stockton told SPACE.com. "Those quasars with extended emissions regions lacked an abundance of heavy elements, and ... those without extended emissions had the usual abundance."

Eating off neighbor's plate

Their observations implied that the extended emissions quasars were picking from their neighbor's plate. "We're pretty confident that the gas in the inner region is not from this massive galaxy," said Stockton. "It came from an external source, most likely a medium-sized galaxy merging with this large one."

Their findings do not shed light on the eating habits of all quasars. Only those with extended emissions regions, which also happen to be powerful radio sources, exhibit the phenomenon. "And only a third to one half of those," said Stockton.

"We think that when the radio source ignites, it sends a blast wave out that clears out a lot of the gas [which contains heavy elements]," making way for in-falling matter from the colliding gas-rich galaxy.

The new research, published in the Aug. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, will help scientists develop theories about a younger universe. The emissions observed by Fu and Stockton are an average 3 billion years old, about a quarter of the way back in time to the Big Bang.

source: LiveScience
 
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.


The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.

Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.

For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.

The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.

Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

http://i.techrepublic.com.com/gallery/38137-500-280.jpg
 
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/18/space.shuttle.ap/index.html

Shuttle ordered home early to avoid storm risk

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA on Saturday ordered space shuttle Endeavour back to Earth a day early out of fear that Hurricane Dean might disrupt flight operations.

The shuttle is now scheduled to depart from the international space station on Sunday, and landing is set for Tuesday.

The astronauts had hurriedly completed a shortened spacewalk Saturday and were still cleaning up from it when the decision came down from mission managers. The two crews shook hands and said goodbye, then closed the hatches between their docked spacecraft.

NASA worried the hurricane might veer toward Houston, the home of Mission Control, forcing an emergency relocation of flight controllers to Cape Canaveral.

The makeshift control center there would not be nearly as good or big as the Houston operation, and that's why managers wanted to bring Endeavour back to Earth early.

Hurricane Dean, a fierce Category 4 storm, was headed toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico. It was uncertain whether the storm might strike the Texas coastline late in the week; that uncertainty made NASA's decision -- so many days in advance -- all the harder.

During a spacewalk that was shortened to save time, Dave Williams and Clay Anderson could see the eye of the giant hurricane as the shuttle-station complex orbited 214 miles above the Caribbean, exclaiming "oh wow" and "holy smokes." "Hooo, man, yeah, can't miss that," one of them said.

Williams and Anderson tackled only the most important space station maintenance chores that had been planned for the fourth and final spacewalk of Endeavour's mission.

Mission Control cut two hours from the spacewalkers' to-do list so the hatches between the linked spacecraft could be closed late Saturday afternoon.

The two men attached a stand to the station's exterior for a shuttle inspection boom. The stand won't be used until next year. They also retrieved two experiments from the outside of the station for return to Earth, and hooked up antenna equipment.

Three hours into the five-hour spacewalk, a fire alarm sounded inside the station, its shrill beeps loud enough to be heard over the radio loops. The station crew rushed to check, but could find no evidence of smoke and Mission Control quickly confirmed it was a false alarm. The same alarm acted up a few weeks ago.

The brief interruption did not affect the spacewalk.

The spacewalkers' gloves, meanwhile, held up just fine. The previous spacewalk was cut short after one astronaut ripped his glove. As a precaution, Williams and Anderson frequently checked their gloves and stayed clear of sharp edges.

"My gloves look like they just came off the showroom floor," Anderson said as the spacewalk ended.

NASA's hurricane deliberations followed a decision to forgo shuttle repairs.

Late Thursday, mission managers concluded that a deep gouge on Endeavour's belly posed no Columbia-like threat to the seven crew members during re-entry and also would not lead to lengthy postflight shuttle repairs. For a week, managers had considered sending two astronauts out with black protective paint and untested goo to patch the 31/2-inch-long, 2-inch-wide gouge that dug all the way through the thermal tiles.

The gouge was caused by debris that broke off a bracket on Endeavour's external fuel tank during liftoff Aug. 8. Engineers still do not know whether it was foam insulation, ice or a combination of both. In any case, NASA said it will not launch another shuttle until the longtime troublesome brackets are fixed.

Endeavour's crew includes teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe's backup for Challenger's tragic 1986 flight.

The astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and the international space station began the last spacewalk of their joint mission Saturday, an outing that was scaled back because of approaching Hurricane Dean.

NASA shortened the spacewalk by two hours so Endeavour could return to Earth on Tuesday, a day early, if the storm appeared to threaten the Houston home of Mission Control.

Spacewalkers Dave Williams and Clay Anderson were set to spend about 4½ hours installing a shuttle inspection boom stand to the station and securing an antenna mount. The rest of the original itinerary involved several space station chores that could be done later.

The two astronauts will be extra careful, avoiding any sharp edges, so they don't rip a glove and have to rush back inside. They also will frequently check their gloves for any damage.

The mission's third spacewalk was cut short on Wednesday when astronaut Rick Mastracchio noticed he'd pierced the thumb of his left glove. The slit penetrated only the top two layers of his five-layer glove.

Hurricane Dean is currently aiming for Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. If it looks as if the storm might veer toward Houston, Mission Control could be forced to relocate to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The operations at Cape Canaveral would not be as good and there would be fewer controllers, which is why NASA was leaning toward bringing the shuttle home a day early.

Endeavour's original flight plan called for it to undock from the station on Monday and land on Wednesday.

Documents that Mission Control sent to the crew early Saturday said they would undock on Sunday and landing was being planned for Tuesday. But NASA officials later said a final decision would be made later in the day, after mission managers analyzed the most recent forecasts.

Shuttle managers also decided Friday to put off fuel-tank preparations for the next launch until engineers decide how best to solve the latest foam-loss problem.

A piece of foam or ice or a combination of both broke off the tank during Endeavour's launch last week and shot into the shuttle's belly, carving out a deep gouge that triggered a week of furious thermal analyses.

The concern was not that Endeavour might be destroyed like Columbia was in 2003, but rather that heat exposure during re-entry might weaken the aluminum frame and require lengthy post-flight repairs.

Mission managers decided Thursday that the damage wasn't bad enough to assign astronauts the risky task of repairing the gash during Saturday's spacewalk.

Foam has come off that same part of the tank -- a bracket that holds the liquid oxygen feed line in place -- on previous flights.

LeRoy Cain, a ranking member of the mission management team, said the redesign to the area in question probably will not delay the next mission, currently targeted for October. But it could well postpone some of the flights after that, he said.

For the next launch, engineers are thinking about trimming off some of the foam on those brackets. They also may consider putting an oil or solution on the foam's surface, so condensation would be less likely to build up and ice would be less likely to form.
 
I'll hold my breath for them at reentry...

Late Thursday, mission managers concluded that a deep gouge on Endeavour's belly posed no Columbia-like threat to the seven crew members during re-entry and also would not lead to lengthy postflight shuttle repairs.

For a week, managers had considered sending two astronauts out with black protective paint and untested goo to patch the 31/2-inch-long, 2-inch-wide gouge that dug all the way through the thermal tiles.
Click to expand...

I'll hold them responsible for that..

Never Again :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose: :rose:
http://www.greatdreams.com/shuttle114/04.gif
 
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/aug/HQ_07178_Internet_Archive.html

Aug. 23, 2007

RELEASE: 07-178


NASA and Internet Archive Team to Digitize Space Imagery

WASHINGTON - NASA and Internet Archive of San Francisco are partnering to scan, archive and manage the agency's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video. The imagery will be available through the Internet and free to the public, historians, scholars, students, and researchers.

Currently, NASA has more than 20 major imagery collections online. With this partnership, those collections will be made available through a single, searchable "one-stop-shop" archive of NASA imagery.

"Making NASA's important scientific and space exploration imagery available and easily accessible online to all is a service of tremendous value to America, and we're pleased to partner with the experts at Internet Archive to accomplish this effort," said Robert Hopkins, chief of strategic communications at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

NASA selected Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, as a partner for digitizing and distributing agency imagery through a competitive process. The two organizations are teaming through a non-exclusive Space Act agreement to help NASA consolidate and digitize its imagery archives using no NASA funds.

"We're dedicated to making all human knowledge available in the digital realm," said Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of Internet Archive. "The educational value of the images NASA has collected during the course of its five decades of scientific discovery is unprecedented. Digitizing NASA's imagery is a big step in Internet Archive's ongoing efforts to digitize a vast spectrum of content and make it freely accessible to the public in an easily searched online destination."

Under the terms of this five-year agreement, Internet Archive will digitize, host and manage still, moving and computer-generated imagery produced by NASA. In the first year, Internet Archive will consolidate NASA's major imagery collections. In the second year, digital imagery will be added to the archive. In the third year, NASA and Internet Archive will identify analog imagery to be digitized and added to this online collection.

In addition, Internet Archive will work with NASA to create a system through which new imagery will be captured, catalogued and included in the online archive automatically. To open this wealth of knowledge to people worldwide, Internet Archive will provide free public access to the online imagery, including downloads and search tools.

The imagery archive also may include other historically significant material such as audio files, printed documents and computer presentations.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


For more information about Internet Archive, visit:

http://www.archive.org
 
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/03aug_dreamyeclipse.htm

Dreamy Lunar Eclipse

Close your eyes, breathe deeply, let your mind wander to a distant seashore: It's late in the day, and the western sun is sinking into the glittering waves. At your feet, damp sand reflects the twilight, while overhead, the deep blue sky fades into a cloudy mélange of sunset copper and gold, so vivid it almost takes your breath away.

A breeze touches the back of your neck, and you turn to see a pale full Moon rising into the night. Hmmm. The Moon could use a dash more color. You reach out, grab a handful of sunset, and drape the Moon with phantasmic light. Much better.

Too bad it's only a dream...

Early Tuesday morning, August 28th, the dream will come true. There's going to be a colorful lunar eclipse visible from five continents including most of North America:

http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/images/dreamyeclipse/LE2007Aug28-Fig3.GIF

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2007Aug28/image/TLE2007Aug28-PDTs.GIF



EDT: Start 4:51am, End 8:24am
CDT: Start 3:51am, End 7:24am
MDT: Start 2:51am, End 6:24am
PDT: Start 1:51am, End 5:24am
 
http://www.csiro.au/news/TelescopeNetworks.html

Networks create “instant world telescope”

5 September 2007

Last week a CSIRO telescope near Coonabarabran NSW was used simultaneously with one near Shanghai, China, and five in Europe to observe a distant galaxy called 3C273.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart,” Dr Tasso Tzioumis, VLBI operations and development manager at CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility said.

“It’s a fantastic technical achievement, and a tribute to the ability of the network providers to work together.”
Data from the telescopes was streamed around the world at a rate of 256 Mb per second - about ten times faster than the fastest broadband speeds available to Australian households - to a research centre in Europe, where it was processed with a special-purpose digital processor.

The results were then transmitted to Xi’an, China, where they were watched live by experts in advanced networking at the 24th APAN (Asia-Pacific Advanced Network) Meeting.

From Australia to Europe, the CSIRO data travelled on a dedicated 1 Gb per second link set up by the Australian, Canadian and Dutch national research and education networks, AARNet, CANARIE and SURFnet respectively.

Within Australia, the experiment used the 1 Gb per second networks that now connect CSIRO’s NSW observatories to Sydney and beyond. The links, installed in 2006, were funded by CSIRO and provided by AARNet (the Australian Academic Research Network).

The telescope-linking technique, VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) used to take weeks or months.
“We used to record data on tapes or disks at each telescope, along with time signals from atomic clocks. The tapes or disks would then be shipped to a central processing facility to be combined,” Dr Tzioumis said

“The more widely separated the telescopes, the more finely detailed the observations can be. The diameter of the Earth is 12 750 km and the two most widely separated telescopes in our experiment were 12 304 km apart, in a straight line,” Dr Tzioumis said.

The institutions that took part in the experiment are all collaborators in the EXPReS project (Express Production Real-time e-VLBI Service), which is coordinated by the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) in The Netherlands.

Download images at: http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/mediarelease/mr07-171.html
 
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