Brussels, 23/08/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 23 August, the European Commission announced a ground-breaking technique to produce real-time, high-resolution images of distant galaxies using fibre optics networks. It has been part-funded by the EU and enables radio telescopes around the world to simultaneously observe the most remote objects in the universe. The technique, called Electronic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (e-VLBI), helps to reveal clues on how galaxies are formed by allowing astronomers to receive and process data in near real-time as an experiment is running, thanks to high speed optical networks. Two high-capacity electronic communications networks projects, EXPReS and NEXPReS, are used in the process. The Commission says that e-VLBI “not only improves the quality of observation results but also helps to maximise the return on investment in radio telescopes”. Unlike the previous system (VLBI) that required the sending in of hard disks, e-VLBI connects up telescopes around the world directly to the central computer that analyses the data supplied and provides the data to scientists in a matter of hours.
Through the EXPReS project, which ran from 2006 to 2009, the supercomputer at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) in the Netherlands has been upgraded for e-VLBI operations. It can receive data from up to 16 telescopes at a time at 1 Gb/s from each telescope. The supercomputer now offers regularly scheduled e-VLBI sessions, as well as opportunities for observations of transient cosmological objects, such as exploding stars, possibly connected to the formation of black holes. The new e-VLBI technique allows telescopes to connect directly to the central supercomputer via optical fibres, avoiding the costs of managing storage media and bringing much faster results. The data is then processed in real-time, providing astronomers with scientific results in a matter of hours rather than weeks. Previously limited to Europe, the e-VLBI technique is now being used on a global scale. The Commission comments that the observations may be useful for climate change research. (J.K./transl.fl)