JACOBS UNIVERSITY BREMEN

Jacobs University will contribute to largest
telescope in the world

   

The Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF) has decided to fund the bid by the astrophysics group at Jacobs University to become part of the world's largest radio telescope, LOFAR.

[ Jun 24, 2008]  The LOw Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a new, digital radio telescope that is currently being constructed in the Netherlands.
LOFAR will explore the sky in a largely unexplored frequency range and is expected to make ground-breaking new discoveries. With LOFAR, astronomers will get a glimpse at the epoch of formation of the very first stars in the universe, they will explore extragalactic magnetic fields, chart millions of galaxies, monitor solar activity and search for extrasolar planets.

LOFAR leads the way for a new generation of digital radio telescopes that consist of a multitude of antenna fields spread over large distances. The radio waves that are received by thousands of antennae are sampled digitally, the signals are transmitted over large baselines via high-speed (3 Gb/s) fibre cables to a high-performance computing facility, where the radio images are synthesized in real time. This way, LOFAR acts like a huge digital camera that scans the entire sky in very low radio frequencies. The core of the LOFAR telescope is situated in the Netherlands and stations are planned all over Europe.

Under the leadership of the astronomy group at Jacobs University, a consortium of German universities and research institutes will contribute towards LOFAR by constructing an antenna field close to the Dutch border and develop the software to process data rates of up to 500 gigabytes per seconds. The Ministry is supporting this technological and scientific effort with more than 1.3 Million Euros.

Contact
Jacobs University Bremen
Marcus Brüggen | Professor of Astrophysics
Email: m.brueggen@jacobs-university.de

 


Author: coco. Last updated on 24.06.2008. © 2008 Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen. All rights reserved. No unauthorized reproduction. http://www.jacobs-university.de. For all general inquiries, please call the university at +49 421 200-40 or mail to info@jacobs-university.de.