[ad_1]
The Luna Not only reflects sunlight and redirects it to Earth, but also radio waves from the confines of the Milky Way. A radio telescope, installed in Western Australia, has seen from its surface both recently issued signals and some from a primitive universe. And this work is very promising, say the astronomers.
A group of them, which processes the information obtained by the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope, has communicated to the readers of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society the first results of the monitoring of the 21 cm waves, which correspond to the hydrogen
According to his estimate, some of the intercepted signals of this length date back to the time of reionization, prior to the Great Explosion, and reached the telescope when the signal was returned. Luna. These signals may be the key to better understand the origins of the universe, say the authors.
Until now, astronomers do not know what shapes and sizes had galaxies and early star formations. In search of answers, the collective decided to use the lunar surface as a screen, although it states that "the reflection behavior of the Moon at low frequencies is not well studied and will require special attention".
The Murchison radio telescope operates at low frequency from the Australian desert. Its isolated location makes it possible to eliminate from all the signals the pollution due to the brightness of the Earth and the sources located on our planet. It does not have the form that we usually associate with telescopes, but it includes 2,048 antennas that allow scientists to measure and map the intensity of the returned galactic waves.
The line of hydrogen emanating from the "dark period" of the Universe is an extremely weak signal. However, if scientists are able to detect it, "this will tell us if our theories about the evolution of the universe are correct," said Professor Benjamin McKinley, of Curtin University (Australia). ), in a statement.
For now, the collective only begins to "understand the errors and spectral characteristics present" in their data. Advances in this research "depend on processing more data and refining our techniques to effectively model reflected and foreground emissions" in the chosen frequency range.
(Source: RT in Spanish)
[ad_2]
Source link
