Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/22453010 (281726ZJAN25) Notable: Space NASA & Related
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Advanced radio telescope technology 'sifts' space for mysteries
January 27, 2025
The first trial of an Australian-developed technology has detected mysterious objects by sifting through signals from space like sand on a beach.
Astronomers and engineers at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, developed the specialized system, CRACO, for their ASKAP radio telescope to rapidly detect mysterious fast radio bursts and other space phenomena.
The new technology has now been put to the test by researchers led by the Curtin University node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy (ICRAR) in Western Australia.
Results published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia present the discovery of two fast radio bursts and two sporadically-emitting neutron stars, and improved location data of four pulsars, enabled by the new technology.
They have since gone on to find more than twenty fast radio bursts.
Dr. Andy Wang from ICRAR, who led the research group and tested CRACO, said the team had found more astronomical objects than expected.
"We were focused on finding fast radio bursts, a mysterious phenomenon that has opened up a new field of research in astronomy.
"CRACO is enabling us to find these bursts better than ever before. We have been searching for bursts 100 times per second and in the future we expect this will increase to 1,000 times per second," Dr. Wang said.
CSIRO astronomer and engineer Dr. Keith Bannister who, along with his team, developed the instrument, says the scale of observation enabled by the new technology is enormous.
"CRACO taps into ASKAP's 'live' view of the sky in search of fast radio bursts.
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