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This image from a prototype radio telescope system shows the moon’s Hadley C crater and the Hadley Rille, a canyon believed to be a collapsed lava tube. The area is also the landing site of the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. (COURTESY NRAO, GBO, RAYTHEON)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Imagine a radio telescope so powerful it can “see” high-resolution details of planets at the farthest reaches of our solar system.
After a two-year “proof of concept” test, scientists have demonstrated such an instrument using the powerful Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia as a transmitter, and the continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array, or VLBA, as a receiver.
Scientists have revealed an incredibly detailed image of the moon s surface showing objects as small as five metres in diameter, captured with reflected radar signals.
The image, released by the US s National Radio Astronomy Observatory, shows the landing site of NASA s Apollo 15 mission in 1971 and the surrounding grooves and jagged craters.
To obtain the image, researchers used satellites that shoot a powerful radar signal towards the moon, which was then reflected back to a system of 10 radio telescopes in North America, called the Very Long Baseline Array.
The final result marks a successful preliminary test of the highly complex radio telescope system.
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Successful Test Paves Way for New Planetary Radar
Credit: NRAO/GBO/Raytheon/NSF/AUI
The National Science Foundationâs Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and Raytheon Intelligence & Space conducted a test in November to prove that a new radio telescope system can capture high-resolution images in near-Earth space.
GBO’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia â the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope â was outfitted with a new transmitter developed by Raytheon Intelligence & Space, allowing it to transmit a radar signal into space. The NRAO’s continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) received the reflected signal and produced images of the Apollo 15 moon landing site.
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