Astronomers have done an incredible observation test for a radio telescope on Earth. They used a new radar system to record glamorous high-resolution images of nearby Earth. The target: the Apollo 15 landing site on the moon.
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is equipped with a new, custom-made radio wave transmitter. Back in November, researchers sent signals to the moon in evidence of the draft test. What they got back is an incredible picture. The Hadley area on the near side of the Moon is visible with a resolution of 5 meters (16.4 feet).
The photo shows in particular the Hadley C crater, which is 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) wide, and the winding Hadley Rille, a narrow depression that stretches 130 kilometers (80 miles) with an average width of 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) and a few hundred feet deep. It is believed to have been an ancient lava tube that collapsed over billions of years ago.
The observations provide some of the best views of the region ever from Earth, a phenomenal achievement for Green Bank Observatory (GBO), National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and Raytheon Intelligence & Space who conducted the experiment has.
“This project opens up a whole new range of functions for both NRAO and GBO,” said Tony Beasley, Director of NRAO and Vice President of Radio Astronomy at Associated Universities, Inc. said in a statement. “We have previously participated in important radar studies of the solar system, but the conversion of GBT to a steerable planetary radar transmitter will greatly expand our ability to pursue intriguing new research lines.”
It works according to the radar signals emitted by the Green Bank telescope, which hit the surface of the object being studied, in this case the Apollo 15 landing site on the Moon. They then reflect back and are observed by the telescopes that are part of the Very Long Baseline Array, a network that stretches from the US Virgin Islands to the continental United States and to Hawaii.
The incredible test is the achievement of a two-year effort to create such a radar, but it is also currently just proof. Researchers see the current transmitter as a springboard to design something more powerful. Something that can be used to study far beyond the moon.
“The planned system will be a leap forward in radar science, enabling access to unprecedented features of the solar system here on earth,” explained Karen O’Neil, site director of GBO.
The new transmitter is expected to be able to capture and produce small objects that pass near the earth, as well as the moons that surround other planets in the solar system. Once the completed plan is in place, radar signals can enable us to study objects as far as the orbit of Neptune from Earth.