The Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA), a powerful radio telescope in the French Alps, has reached full capacity. On September 30, the 12-antenna telescope was inaugurated, becoming the most powerful millimeter radio telescope in the northern hemisphere.
The telescope will make unprecedented observations of the cosmos because of its ability to capture light that has traveled there Earth back for 13 billion years when the universe was about 600 million years old.
NOEMA will also study and continue to support stars at all stages of their lives Event Horizon Telescope in study black holes. That means it will play a key role in helping astronomers answer some of the universe’s fundamental questions.
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The first antenna of the NOEMA system was inaugurated in 2014, and the telescope now includes 12 antennas. In addition, the length of the rails on which all 12 antennas can travel has been increased from 2,500 feet (760 meters) to just over a mile (1.7 kilometers), so a expression by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
This allows the configurations of the antennas to be adjusted, allowing astronomers to zoom in on cosmic objects and study them in more detail. With various configurations helping NOEMA to function like a zoom-lens camera, the telescope’s maximum achievable spatial resolution would allow it to detect a cellphone from over 500 km away, CNRS researchers said in the statement.
NOEMA’s impressive resolving power also comes from its antenna technology. All antennas pointing to the same region of space are equipped with highly sensitive receivers that operate at quantum boundaries and use a technique called interferometry. The signals received by the antennas are combined by a supercomputer, allowing the 12 antennas, spread over a wide area, to act as a single massive telescope with a diameter covering the entire area.
Millimeter radio telescopes like NOEMA examine light with wavelengths in the millimeter range electromagnetic spectrum. Cosmic objects like galaxies, fog and Stars emit different types of light depending on their composition, temperature and age. This means that to create a more complete picture of an object, astronomers must combine observations and data collected at different wavelengths.
The newly booted NOEMA telescope is one of the few radio observatories around the world that can simultaneously collect data on a large number of molecular and atomic signatures — the “fingerprints” of molecules and atoms — in what astronomers call “multiline observations.”
This means that the instrument is well equipped to study matter that lies in the regions between stars. Usually composed of hydrogen and helium gas with small amounts of heavier elements, this so-called interstellar medium is the material from which stars and planets form.
Astronomers will also use NOEMA to study cold matter, which exists just a few degrees above absolute zero – the hypothetical temperature at which all atomic motion ceases – and the composition of entire galaxies.
Even before it reached full capacity, NOEMA was making waves in astronomy. Recently, the radio telescope observed one of the most distant galaxies ever seen, emerging shortly after Big Bang. NOEMA also discovered the first example of a fast-growing black hole in the dust-filled heart of a so-called Starburst Galaxywhere star formation is rapid.
In addition, NOEMA has measured the early temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the first light to fill the universe after it had cooled sufficiently for electrons and protons to combine and photons to move freely. This measurement could help narrow down the effects of Dark Energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerated expansion of the universe we see today.
NOEMA, which marks the culmination of 40 years of scientific collaboration in Europe, was inaugurated on September 30 at a ceremony attended by a number of prominent astronomers, including Reinhard Genzel, one of the 2020 Nobel Prize winners in Physics.
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