How Telescopes are Learning to Play Nicely Together
New research reveals that 11 telescopes located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which are used to observe the universe, have been unable to work together due to their close proximity. These telescopes are part of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), and the ALMA observatory has been trying to get them to work together since its inception in 2013. However, due to the close proximity of the telescopes, their signals interfered with each other, making it difficult to get them to work together. This interference is known as “cross-talk” and is a well-known problem in radio astronomy. The team of researchers were able to solve this problem by using a new algorithm that was able to successfully separate the signals from each telescope and make them work together. This is an important breakthrough for ALMA, as it will help make their observations of the universe much more accurate.
source: Phys.org