US goverment shutdown switches off radio telescopes
Source: Physics Today
US goverment shutdown switches off radio telescopes
Posted on October 4, 2013 by Charles Day
Science: Three radio telescopes in the US are going offline because the ongoing government shutdown has deprived them of operating funds. The shuttered telescopes are the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, which is the worlds most sensitive single-dish radio telescope; the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, a 27-telescope array in New Mexico; and the Very Long Baseline Array, a 10-telescope array in Hawaii that is used for high-resolution observations. A fourth radio telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, has been spared for now, thanks its international partners, Chile, Europe, and Japan. Mothballing the telescopes is neither cheap nor trivial. Some of their electronic innards require continuous cryogenic cooling. If that fails, the telescopes could be damaged.
- See more at: http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/?p=22506#sthash.jNUvCPfx.dpuf
Read more: http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/?p=22506
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)...although I'm sure they would pity us more than anything.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)TomClash
(11,344 posts)Jay-sus will save us . . .
Octobrist
(32 posts)I mean, you don't really think Ted Cruz is an Earthling, do you?
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Teabaggers are fucking things up all on their own.
daleo
(21,317 posts)I hope the space telescopes are being maintained.
tonekat
(1,820 posts)"Never mind, it disappeared, could have sworn there was something there. Oh well, where do you want to go for lunch, fellas?"