![]() ![]() The chirp will repeat at two-second intervals. HAARP will transmit a continually chirping signal to asteroid 2010 XC15 at slightly above and below 9.6 megahertz (9.6 million times per second). Those radar-imaging programs use signals of short wavelengths, which bounce off the surface and provide high-quality external images but don't penetrate an object. Many programs exist to quickly detect asteroids, determine their orbit and shape and image their surface, either with optical telescopes or the planetary radar of the Deep Space Network, NASA's network of large and highly senstive radio antennas in California, Spain and Australia. "If you know the distribution of mass, you can make an impactor more effective, because you'll know where to hit the asteroid a little better," Haynes said. Knowing more about an asteroid's interior, especially of an asteroid large enough to cause major damage on Earth, is important for determining how to defend against it. "Longer wavelengths can penetrate the interior of an object much better than the radio wavelengths used for communication." "What's new and what we are trying to do is probe asteroid interiors with long wavelength radars and radio telescopes from the ground," said Mark Haynes, lead investigator on the project and a radar systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. This will be the first use of HAARP to probe an asteroid. The University of New Mexico Long Wavelength Array near Socorro, New Mexico, and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array near Bishop, California, will receive the signal. They say their findings demonstrate that it's possible to detect similar signals from faraway galaxies with the help of gravitational lensing, opening new opportunities to study the early universe with existing low-frequency radio telescopes.The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research site in Gakona will transmit radio signals to asteroid 2010 XC15, which could be about 500 feet across. With funding from McGill University and the Indian Institute of Science, the researchers utilized the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, which is an array of 30 maneuverable radio telescope dishes in western India's Maharashtra state. This effectively results in the magnification of the signal by a factor of 30, allowing the telescope to pick it up." "In this specific case, the signal is bent by the presence of another massive body, another galaxy, between the target and the observer. ![]() "Gravitational lensing magnifies the signal coming from a distant object to help us peer into the early universe," Roy explained. Nirupam Roy is the study's co-author and an associate professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science. "This will help us understand the composition of galaxies at much greater distances from Earth." "But thanks to the help of a naturally occurring phenomenon called gravitational lensing, we can capture a faint signal from a record-breaking distance," Chakraborty said. ![]() Normally, signals like these from distant galaxies are too faint to detect with current radio telescopes, which often look like rows of large television satellite dishes. The signal also enabled researchers to determine that the atomic mass of the galaxy's hydrogen gas content is nearly double the mass of the stars that are visible to us. The distant star-forming galaxy is known as SDSSJ0826+5630. "Until now, it’s only been possible to capture this particular signal from a galaxy nearby, limiting our knowledge to those galaxies closer to Earth." "A galaxy emits different kinds of radio signals," said Chakraborty, who studies cosmology in McGill's physics department. Published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the study explains how researchers were able to capture the most distant signal ever in a specific radio wavelength known as the 21 centimetre line, which is created by hydrogen, providing them with a unique glimpse of the early universe. "It’s the equivalent to a look-back in time of 8.8 billion years," Arnab Chakraborty, the study's co-author and a post-doctoral researcher at McGill University, said in a news release. Researchers from Montreal and India have detected a radio signal from a galaxy that's nearly nine billion light years away.Īccording to their findings, the signal would have been emitted when the universe was just 4.9 billion years old – long before our own solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. ![]()
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