... 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.
(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]