Space-earth system produces highest-resolution astronomical image
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 15:56
in Astronomy & Space
Using an orbiting radio-astronomy satellite combined with 15 ground-based radio telescopes, astronomers have made the highest-resolution, or most-detailed, astronomical image yet, revealing new insights about a gorging black hole in a galaxy 900 million light-years from Earth. The scientists combined signals from the Spektr-R satellite of the RadioAstron mission with those from radio telescopes throughout Europe and nine antennas of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The result was an image with the resolving power of a telescope about 62,500 miles wide, or almost eight times the diameter of the Earth.