Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array

ScienceDaily reports that scientists from NRL's Space Science and Remote Sensing Divisions have generated the first scientific results from the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array (LWDA).

The measurements were obtained during field tests and calibration of two prototype antennas for the much larger Long Wavelength Array (LWA), which will eventually consist of nearly 13,000 similar antennas.

Utilizing radio emissions from the approximately 300 year-old Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova remnant (SNR)—one of the brightest astronomical radio sources in the sky—to establish baseline measurements, NRL scientist and National Research Council (NRC) postdoctoral fellow Dr. Jake Hartman utilized the LWDA to confirm and extend a study initiated by fellow NRL-NRC postdoc Dr. Joseph Helmboldt.

Once completed, the LWA will provide an entirely novel view of the sky in the radio frequency range of 20-80 MHz, currently one of the most poorly explored regions of the electromagnetic spectrum in astronomy.

The LWA will be able to make sensitive high-resolution images, scanning the sky rapidly for new and transient sources of radio waves that may represent the explosion of distant massive stars or detect emissions from planets outside of our own solar system and previously unknown objects or phenomena.

Read the full story Scientists Make First Discovery Using Revolutionary Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array at
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/
090818150031.htm

ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/

Thanks to George Boorer ZL3PN for spotting this item