New LOFAR Telescope Network Probes Regions of Low-Frequency Radiation to Look for Oldest Regions and Alien Civilizations
Until recently, radio astronomers have concentrated almost exclusively on the high-energy radiation streaming in towards Earth from exotic stellar bodies like pulsars, quasars, and super-massive black holes. But now, a new European observatory called the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) has begun releasing data on the low-energy radiation that permeates the Universe. While seemingly less sexy than high-energy research, low-energy radiation actually allows scientists to look even deeper into the past, to within 500,000 years of the Big Bang, and will provide a much more detailed account of some of the most mysterious periods of the Universe's earliest days of existence. LOFAR is also going to be used by SETI to search for faint signs of extraterrestrial life LOFAR began operating last year, and consists of listening stations in Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Today, scientists released the first images from LOFAR, and the difference in resolution between these...