from the check-what-happens-when-i-point-this-laser-pointer-at-that-telescope dept.
Using radio astronomy, over 200 astronomers hailing from 18 different countries have gathered over 20 petabyes of data and published a new map of the night sky that has over 300,000 previously undiscovered galaxies in it.
In-depth coverage here. Mainstream articles here and here.
Good Video Fly through the LOFAR Survey radio Universe. LOFAR image gallery here
The team used the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in the Netherlands to pick up traces -- or "jets" -- of ancient radiation produced when galaxies merge. These jets, previously undetected, can extend over millions of light years.
"With radio observations we can detect radiation from the tenuous medium that exists between galaxies," said Amanda Wilber, of the University of Hamburg.
"LOFAR allows us to detect many more of these sources and understand what is powering them."
These jets occur near the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies.
These detections are only the beginning however, so buckle in and prep for lightspeed
The LOFAR telescope, which is made up of a network of radio antenna located across seven European countries, has helped scientists chart just just 2 percent of the sky so far. The team plans to create high-resolution images of the entire northern sky, which they say will reveal up to 15 million previously undetected radio sources.
Too bad it can't focus in on Proxima Centauri.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 20 2019, @03:01PM (3 children)
Suppose a single date is represented in 8 bites or 64 bits. Google says there are 36,500 days in a century. That's 292,000 bytes for every date in a century. Supposing human civilization is 7000 years (which presumes being 'civilized'). That's 70 centuries, or 20,440,000 bytes.
So even one petabyte of dates would have a lot of redundant dates, unless it covers a vastly longer timespan. Four billiion years worth of dates would be 1.168x1013 bytes. One petabyte is 1x1015, so still a lot of redundancy.
But maybe we mean the kind of dates you eat which grow on trees? I don't know how many bites each of those are.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Wednesday February 20 2019, @04:06PM (1 child)
fixed [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:17PM
How many romantic dates are in a petabyte?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:19PM
You answered this!
If it takes 8 bites per date (admittedly a bit birdlike, but ok),
- assuming 2 chews per bite, and a chewing rate of 2 chews per second, that's a consumption rate of 900 dates per hour
- Average caloric consumption of 11 calories per hour
- 1.1111111e12 hours to consume them
- 1.2222222e+12 calories burned processing 20 petabites of dates
However each date contains ~70 calories or 7e16 calories, making the calories expended consuming them effectively irrelevant.
999569974676.29 Calories is ~1 Kiloton of TNT
Rounding a little, it sounds like they are storing the equivalent of ~1.2 Kilotons of TNT worth of dates.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:11PM (2 children)
So many galaxies but nothing out there worth visiting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)
We've barely scratched the surface on what kinds of exoplanets exist in our own galaxy. Millions of them could be habitable by humans and/or currently inhabited by life forms. We have no idea whether or not other galaxies are worth visiting, because we don't have the technology to visit them or see their contents in detail.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:25PM
I will grant you the power to live anywhere in the Universe.
GUARONTEEED you will be back here, almost dead, within a month.
You hoomaans are SOOOOO weak and addicted to your USELESS oxygen and gravity and temperature and pressure and water and food groups and low radiation and microbial codependencies and socialization and minerals and trace elements. PATHETIC!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:03PM
I am impressed! Quite a feat, mapping undiscovered galaxies! How did they even know where to put them on the map? I am almost as impressed as I was when I used to, for a brief period, run Microsoft's alleged operating system, and they kindly notified me that there had been "an undetectable error" in it. Wow! how could the even know that? Detecting undetectable errors! That's skookum!
I soon switched to Linux, mostly because Linus Torvalds claimed that the Linux kernel could run infinite loops in under four seconds. Now that is impressive! No longer true, however, because with systemd, it takes infinity +4 seconds.