The new ngRADAR at the Green Bank Telescope offers unprecedented Earth-based views of the solar system
When a baseball pitcher throws a fastball, the speed pops up on the jumbotron thanks to radar. The technology is also useful for air traffic control, highway speed traps and weather forecasting—and it’s not reserved for Earth. Astronomers have used radar to probe the planets and asteroids around us, measuring their speed as they whiz around the sun and imaging the details of their surface.
(more…)Planetary Defense & Science Will Advance With New Radar on Green Bank Telescope
With less power than a microwave, prototype produced highest resolution images of Moon ever captured from Earth
With a transmitter less powerful than a microwave oven, a team of scientists and engineers used the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to make the highest-resolution radar images of the Moon ever collected from the ground, paving the way for a next-generation radar system to study planets, moons, and asteroids in the Solar System.
A Synthetic Aperture Radar image of the Moon’s Tycho Crater, showing 5-meter resolution detail. (click images above for full view) Image credit Raytheon Technologies.
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