NEWS: South Africa Unveils Giant S.A.L.T Telescope, page 1

posted on Nov, 11 2005 @ 01:39 AM

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South africa has unveiled the new S.A.L.T (South Africa Large telescope) telescope which will allow viewing of galaxies and stars one billion times more faint than those visible by naked eye viewing. The telescope is hoped to give Scientists a glimpse into the past at the origins of our universe. The Telescope is situated in South Africa's arid Karoo region which was chosen for it's remoteness from city lights.

www.abc.net.au

South Africa has unveiled the Southern Hemisphere's biggest telescope, intended to catch glimpses of the early universe and shed light on how it turned from smooth to clumpy.

It will probe quasars, which resemble bright stars at the centre of galaxies but are believed to be powered by black holes and which are some of the most distant objects in the universe.

The light reaching us now left them billions of years ago and we see them as they were then.

NGC 6744 taken by SALT. Image credit: SALT

"SALT gives us the ability to look far back in time," Dr David Buckley, the project scientist, said.

"When the universe was very young it was smooth and had a uniform distribution but now it is quite clumpy," Dr Buckley said.

"You look at the night sky and the stars are scattered all over the place. We want to find out how this happened."

SALT is a massive hexagon 11 metres in diameter filled with smaller mirrored hexagons.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

This is exciting news. The telescope will allow sicentists to explore new frontiers in space and from a location far south from most larger observation telescopes in the world at the moment.

I can't wait to see the information and pictures that the telescope receives as it unveils more and more about our galaxy and universe.

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Related News Links:
www.salt.ac.za
www.universetoday.com
www.astro.wisc.edu
cepsar.open.ac.uk

[edit on 11-11-2005 by Mayet]

mrjones

posted on Nov, 11 2005 @ 04:51 AM

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Space, the final frontier...

IronDogg

posted on Nov, 11 2005 @ 07:22 AM

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Originally posted by Mayet
The Telescope is situated in South Africa's arid Karoo region which was chosen for it's remoteness from city lights...
...This is exciting news. The telescope will allow sicentists to explore new frontiers in space and from a location far south from most larger observation telescopes in the world at the moment.

Speaking of this, why is it that they can't build a massive telescope in Antartica? No lights (except aurora australis maybe) down there, and it is very very south...
Surely there is appropriate technology nowadays to deal with the cold, isn't there?

Centrist

posted on Nov, 11 2005 @ 01:39 PM

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Speaking of this, why is it that they can't build a massive telescope in Antartica? No lights (except aurora australis maybe) down there, and it is very very south...

Two reasons. First, there really isn't any technology to address the extreme cold and the effect it would have on the ceramic-based material they use. Second, it's only completely dark in antarctica a few months out of the year and the dark seasons (winter) is accompanied by heavy cloud cover.