The construction of 64 such telescopes on a vast, adjustable grid of tracks covering 40 square km is daunting. The combined collecting surface of the receivers will measure 6.000 square metres, the size of a football pitch.
"We want to know how the heavens got structure. In short, we want to understand how we got from the Big Bang to human beings." One answer is to build bigger optical telescopes to gather photons from more distant galaxies.
But why bother? Given that the night sky is full of bright galaxies, why do astronomers build telescopes manufactured to a billionth of a metre accuracy, just to see faint ones? The answer is about looking back in time.
Field continues, "In other words, telescopes are time machines. They have shown us what the universe was like ten billion years ago, how it evolved during its childhood."
Plenty of telescopes gaze at the far parts of the Milky Way, but Voyager 1 can now touch and feel the cold, unexplored region in between the stars and send back detailed dispatches about conditions there.
Plenty of telescopes gaze at the far parts of the Milky Way, but Voyager 1 can now touch and feel the cold, unexplored region in between the stars and send back detailed dispatches about conditions there.
Plenty of telescopes gaze at the far parts of the Milky Way, but Voyager 1 can now touch and feel the cold, unexplored region in between the stars and send back detailed dispatches about conditions there.
Using the Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of astronomers calculated the black hole’s mass, which is vastly larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
Using the Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of astronomers calculated the black hole’s mass, which is vastly larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
Using the Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of astronomers calculated the black hole’s mass, which is vastly larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
Using the Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of astronomers calculated the black hole’s mass, which is vastly larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
This mosaic image of the Crab Nebula, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion.
This mosaic image of the Crab Nebula, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion.
This mosaic image of the Crab Nebula, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion.
Made of nearly 40,000 perforated aluminum panels covering an area of about twenty acres, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
Made of nearly 40,000 perforated aluminum panels covering an area of about twenty acres, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
Made of nearly 40,000 perforated aluminum panels covering an area of about twenty acres, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
Using the Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of astronomers calculated the black hole’s mass, which is vastly larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.