markf@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Mark Felton) (10/26/86)
NASA NEWS -> Oct 3, 1986 NEW SPACE ASTRONOMY TECHNIQUE DEVELOPED TO STUDY CELESTIAL BODIES A new space radio-astronomy technique, using an orbiting satellite to study celestial objects, has been successfully tested by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. An international team of scientists conducted experiments during July and August employing a new space technique called very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). They combined data from radio telescopes on the ground with data from an antenna on NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) spacecraft, managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Investigators obtained better resolution of three quasars than is possible in ground based radio studies at the same wavelength. Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects, are among the most distant objects known. The resolution obtained from the orbiting VLBI experiment was equivallent to that of a radio telescope with size of 1.4 Earth diameters. The quasars studied are designated 1730-130, 1741-038 and 1510-089. For the first time, a VLBI experiment used an orbiting satellite as one of its radio telescopes. Previously, scientists linked widely separated antennae on the ground with VLBI techniques to produce high-resolution radio astronomy studies of celestial objects. Primary ground observatories in the experiment were NASA's Deep Space Network 210-foot antenna in Australia and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences' 64 meter antenna at Usuda, Japan. An 80 foot antenna at the Radio Research Laboratory in Kashima, Japan, also was used to check performance of the larger ground antenna. Researchers believe the experiment's success demonstrates the feasibility of a proposed orbiting VLBI mission. That mission would use a satellite dedicated to radio-astronomy observations and would yield new data on many celestial phenomena, including the nature of galactic nuclei, the overall phenomena, including the nature of galactic nuclei, the overall distance scale of the Universe and the formation of new stars. The research team led by Gerald S. Levy and other JPL scientists included investigators from M.I.T.; the Haystack Observatory, Westford, Mass.; Bendix Field Engineering Corp., Columbia, Md.; the Spacecom/TRW/ Bendix team White Sands, N.M. and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Australian participants were from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory. Japanese experimenters were from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, the Nobeyama Radio Observatory and the Radio Research OLaboratory. NASA's portion of the VLBI experiment was jointly sponsored by the Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems and Office of Space Science and Applications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NASA News Release 86-140 Leon Perry Headquarters, Washington, D.C and Franklin O'Donnell Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Reprinted with permission for electronic distribution