from the whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts dept.
... Jayce Dowell and Gregory B. Taylor, a research assistant professor and professor (respectively) with the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico [...] outlined their idea in a study titled "The Swarm Telescope Concept [pdf]", which recently appeared online and was accepted for publication by the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation.
[...] Instead of a single instrument, the telescope would consist of a distributed array where many autonomous elements come together through a data transport system to function as a single facility. This approach, they claim, would be especially useful when it comes to the Next Generation Very Large Array (NGVLA) – a future interferometer that will build on the legacy of the Karl G. [J]ansky Very Large Array and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). As they state in their study:
At the core of the swarm telescope is a shift away from thinking about an observatory as a monolithic entity. Rather, an observatory is viewed as many independent parts that work together to accomplish scientific observations. This shift requires moving part of the decision making about the facility away from the human schedulers and operators and transitioning it to "software defined operators" that run on each part of the facility. These software agents then communicate with each other and build dynamic arrays to accomplish the goals of multiple observers, while also adjusting for varying observing conditions and array element states across the facility.
Related Stories
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
If Lowell Observatory's Gerard van Belle gets his way, you'll soon be watching an exoplanet cross the face of its star, hundreds of light-years from the Earth. He can't show you that right now, but he should be able to when the new mirrors are installed at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer in northern Arizona. They're arriving now and should soon start collecting starlight—and making it the highest-resolution optical telescope in the world.
Van Belle recently showed Ars around the gigantic instrument, which bears almost no resemblance to what a non-astronomer pictures when they hear the word "telescope." There are a couple of more traditional telescopes in dome-topped silos on site, including one built in 1920s in Ohio, where it spent the first few decades of its life.
The best way to improve imagery on these traditional scopes is to increase the diameter of the mirror catching light. But this has its limits—perfect mirrors can only be built so large.
[...] A bigger mirror provides two advantages: it catches more light (making fainter objects visible) and it produces a higher-resolution image. If you give up on the first advantage, you can go all in on the second by laying out a handful of small mirrors over a considerable distance. The total mirror area (and therefore light collection) won't be that great, but the tremendous diameter of the array cranks the resolution up to 11. That's the principle behind the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer, a Y-shaped installation with a functional diameter of up to 430 meters.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/meet-the-telescope-that-may-soon-show-you-an-exo-eclipse/
Related: Very Large Telescope Interferometer Captures Best Ever Image of Another Star (Antares)
Very Large Telescope's MUSE Instrument Studies the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field
Very Large Telescope's ESPRESSO Combines Light From All Four Unit Telescopes for the First Time
High-Resolution View Into The Infrared Universe
Very Large Telescope Captures First Direct Image of a Planet Being Formed
Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer Will Have Resolution of a 347-Meter Telescope for $200m
The Swarm Telescope Concept
(Score: 2) by Revek on Monday July 09 2018, @09:14PM (13 children)
The only problem in the past is not having enough available bandwidth to allow for rapid processing of all of the image elements. I read about this the first time in the 90's. Sounds like something I would like to see done. The effective virtual footprint of the combined equipment would be the distance between outside scopes assuming a roughly circular layout. The greater the number telescopes would increase effective resolution.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 09 2018, @09:50PM (4 children)
Timing is more important - in an interferometer arrangement, one can't recombine the images in something coherent in the absence of the signal's phase info within some precision of 2π.
It's much easier for radio signals, but as soon as you step into the IR-Vis range, you will be dealing with femto-seconds as the period (550nm wavelength is 1.8346e-15 seconds), so "enough precision" will get you in the atto-seconds timing.
It's only relatively recent (2014 [colorado.edu]) the technology for the atto-second precision was certified.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Revek on Monday July 09 2018, @11:08PM (3 children)
Yes, yes details. A whole list of details will need to be addressed. With enough telescopes and a wide enough orbit though the resolution will be simply incredible.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 09 2018, @11:55PM (2 children)
That detail I mentioned? That was the "devil's one", until you haven't solved it, the "old idea" you described was just theory; with no technology capable to support it it would have remained a dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:14AM (1 child)
The articles don't make it clear that the proposed swarm would be used for optical rather than radio wavelengths, although I might have missed it.
GRACE-FO is probably a good demonstrator of the kind of positioning technology needed.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:20AM
The linked PDF, section 2, with my emphasis
Indeed, it's radio spectrum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 09 2018, @09:59PM (7 children)
Awesome resolution for bright objects. Not so great light collection for dim ones.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday July 09 2018, @10:14PM (6 children)
Well said. Or put more sarcastically -- a million shitty telescopes that each can't see something, all taken collectively -- still can't see it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday July 09 2018, @10:33PM
We just covered this:
Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer Will Have Resolution of a 347-Meter Telescope for $200m [soylentnews.org]
Yeah, it has less light collection capability, but the benefits of the increased resolution outweigh that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Monday July 09 2018, @10:36PM (2 children)
I see somebody forgot about the CSI "Enhance" trick that increases resolution to whatever you need.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:30AM (1 child)
And if you rotate the image you can see the planets on the other side of the star.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:43PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 10 2018, @06:11AM
Not true. They act additively for purposes of light gathering power (though it can take considerable processing to achieve that) and have an effective collective aperture area proportional to a million times their individual aperture. So a million shitty telescopes have equivalent light gathering power to a telescope with a diameter a thousand times as large.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @07:15AM
Same for the "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" bullshit claim.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 09 2018, @09:19PM (13 children)
Hinted at here: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/04/02/0644220 [soylentnews.org]
Discussed briefly here: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/02/14/0335247 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday July 09 2018, @10:25PM (11 children)
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2018/05/02/a-self-assembling-space-telescope/ [centauri-dreams.org]
https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/12802/Using-Robots-to-Build-Modular-Telescopes-in-Space.aspx [engineering.com]
I can't find the exact article I wanted (one was more specific than "payloads of opportunity" about how one of these would be launched), but Modular Active Self-Assembling Space Telescope Swarms and other concepts miss the point if they don't factor in BFR launch cost, payload, and volume. You can launch big and cheap sections, repeatedly, which can be assembled in orbit. Assembling with solar sail deployed parts could fail. The delicate unfolding mechanism of JWST could fail. If you can maneuver and lock large rigid mirrors together as if you are building a space station, that would be preferable. You could arrange them like the Giant Magellan Telescope [wikipedia.org] and do 1 BFR launch per mirror segment, and probably come under the launch cost of a Delta IV Heavy.
ATLAST/HDST [wikipedia.org]/LUVOIR is currently being evaluated as a successor to the JWST, but it would most likely double down on the JWST unfolding design which has had problems, and have a $10 billion budget from the start (before any overruns or delays). We need to do modular space telescopes right and soon so that we can prevent a JWST 2.0 situation and get better capabilities for less money. And that requires looking at the elephant in the room, BFR, rather than puttering around with "payloads of opportunity".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Monday July 09 2018, @10:46PM (10 children)
"10 Billion ? That's less than our run rate for a week" - anonymous US military official.
Amazing how far we would be as a species if the Empire wasn't focused on fighting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 09 2018, @10:57PM (9 children)
If you can cut costs without hurting capabilities, you should do it. Then you can have 2, 3, 5, 10, etc. telescopes. The demand for telescope time is insatiable, and it would be great to have multiple space telescopes in orbit that are better than Hubble or JWST.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 09 2018, @11:10PM (8 children)
10% less annual money for the US military would give us a JWST launched every other month, still pay back the bribes from the same contractor to the appropriate senators, and leave us with some significant spare change.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:07AM (7 children)
Both of us have said basically the same thing on previous articles [soylentnews.org]. We all know that, it would be great if NASA's budget was quadrupled at the expense of the military, and we all know that it's not going to happen anytime soon. It's more realistic to talk about ways to reduce costs or use new, better technologies, rather than flogging the military-industrial complex horse.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:34AM
I know. In this specific case, it has the advantage of being the same contractor lining up their pockets despite/thanks to the delays from their mistake, whether on the NASA or the Mil side. Would they lobby against the line item if they get the same amount of dough?
It's good to be Northrop.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 10 2018, @01:24AM (4 children)
What's wrong with finding a few very dangerous rocks on collision courses? Let alone some aggressive extraterrestrials. Should be easier than to find Russian novichok or election meddling and way better for everybody.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 10 2018, @04:10AM (3 children)
As you might have noticed, finding a legitimately threatening asteroid is pretty difficult. There was the Chelyabinsk [wikipedia.org] one, but it was too small to be detectable and it didn't kill anybody, just injured ~1,491 people from broken glass caused by the airburst. How much larger or closer does the asteroid need to strike to routinely kill people? Enough to make it a rare occurrence, apparently, since we don't know of any near-term impactors right now.
Asteroid mining could be a bigger motivator for going after asteroids, except that one of the companies hotly pursuing that, Planetary Resources, is out of planetary funding [geekwire.com].
Finding dangerous aliens might boost telescope budgets somewhat, but a lot of money would also be spent on weapons yet again. Possibly even ones that are stuck on the ground rather than cool spaceships capable of solar system exploration. After all, you can connect gigawatts of coal power plants to your ground-based laser turrets, but not directly to your spaceship.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 10 2018, @03:41PM (2 children)
Yeah, our rock still has too much resources.
Still, the underlying problem is that we need to find a better target for dumping extra capacity. Building pyramids and churches was a nice approach, but lost credibility. Fighting other humans became too dangerous and is loosing credibility fast. What's left? Imaginary aliens or coming rocks would fit the bill I think, but I am looking for better ideas.
I mean, look, if Russians were able to change elections, we, trained professionals, should be able to come up and brain wash the population for a safer target, aren't we?
P.S. nothing is wrong with weapons as long as they are not used.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 10 2018, @04:05PM (1 child)
Aaaand we're full circle back to money being blown on F-22s and F-35s instead of interplanetary probes and big space telescopes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 10 2018, @11:11PM
True, bro..., we got to break the cycle.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:51PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday July 10 2018, @01:07AM
Redundant Array of Soylent Stories About Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Telescopes
also here https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/07/05/2115218 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 09 2018, @09:51PM (4 children)
This approach has long been used on Earth with great success in the radiotelescope area, and has been moving up into higher frequencies as switching speeds have improved. But it depends on establishing with great precision the relative position of the telescopes. There are really huge design problems in this that need to be overcome when using it in space, but, OTOH, it shows great promise, and if you can solve the positioning problems (you also need to control the direction that you're looking quite strongly when working at higher frequencies), it might well prove superior. And the components would be a lot cheaper, and it could be extended by adding more components.
So it's a great idea, but I'd like to see some tests before committing to a replacement of a current technique that basically works.
(OTOH, the Webb telescope seems mired in technical problems itself, so perhaps the current system isn't working.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 09 2018, @10:04PM
I think the Webb is demonstrating our challenge-limits for scaling up current tech in a space based platform. We'll continue to get better in the future, and it's good to stretch the limits once in awhile.
Too bad we aren't choosing to afford to also put up some slam-dunk Hubble rehashes that we know we can do faster and cheaper than a Webb - even though Hubble type data is "boring" the universe is still happening out there and some more "boring" images of what's happening here and there do have quite a bit of value too.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 09 2018, @10:28PM
It might be a lot easier than you think (also see GRACE-FO which just launched and fired its laser(s) this week):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Recovery_and_Climate_Experiment#Measurement_principle [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday July 09 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)
That's a huge problem though isn't it? Not very many places on Earth are super stable relative to each other. It seems that way at the macrolevel, but try aligning a laser over 40 miles to communicate and watch how much it drifts. Shit, even the building itself can sway a little bit and throw it off. That's why even the best wireless links are using a rather large beam to each other to help compensate for that.
This requires precision at a level that daily expansion/contraction of the ground from the heat would need to be factored in. Even if you used rigid steel to create a large mesh and placed the collectors on top of it, and that's probably the wrong material to fight contraction/expansion.
Somebody above mentioned attosecond precision requirements. I'm guessing that means one hell of a positioning system constantly measuring the distances between two points. However, even in that case wouldn't the structure of the collector itself vary enough to throw those calculations off? Meaning at some point isn't everything moving too much to determine position accurately enough?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:53PM
Welllll.....I don't think the problem is quite as bad as you're picturing it, but it sure isn't trivial. Still, based on various things they've done recently, like dynamically deformable mirrors, it's probably doable. Probably. Only now the positional variations are in 3-space rather than a deformed 2-space, and that's a bit tougher. And while they should be predictable, they're a bit less controllable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 09 2018, @09:56PM
As the arrays grow, there will be times when parts are under a heavy rainstorm while others have clear viewing. Makes management interesting.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:39PM
Build a swarm of monster telescopes.
Get sued by monster cable.
Build telescope on far side of moon with a communication network that can relay data / commands, to / from earth. Although half the time it is in sunlight, it doesn't have to look in the direction of the sun through a tube. That's better than putting it on the side of Mercury which faces away from the sun.
Then use telescope to convince NASA that SLS should have an even bigger better launcher to provide servicing missions to the telescope.
Sign an executive order.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.