An array of linked telescopes will enable quick responses to events and close monitoring of astronomical phenomena.
Press release on behalf of PPARC
The telescope at LJMU. Credit: LJMU.
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British astronomers are celebrating the world premiere of an operation that could change the face of astronomy. The project will create a global network of robotic telescopes, which will be called "RoboNet 1.0". The network will be monitored by intelligent software, which will be able to respond to rapid changes in astronomical objects, such as violent gamma ray bursts, and provide twenty-four hours a day monitoring of interesting phenomena. Robont will also search for Earth-like planets outside the solar system, which have not yet been discovered in our galaxy.
Progress in many of the most exciting areas of modern astronomy relies on the ability to respond quickly to unexpected changes in the position of objects in the sky. This thought led the astronomers at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) to initiate the development of a new generation of robotic telescopes, to be designed and built in England by Telescope Technologies Ltd. The Liverpool Telescope (LT) together with time to be allocated from the Fowlkes North Observatory (FTN) and soon the Fowlkes South Observatory (FTS) make up the Robont 1.0 network.
LJMU's Professor Michael Bode, Head of the Robont Project, commented on the need for a network of telescopes saying "Although each telescope on its own is a powerful tool, they are still limited by the hours of darkness, local weather conditions and the smoothness of the sky that each telescope can see from its location.”
Professor Budd added "Astronomical phenomena, with all due respect, do not obey such restrictions, they undergo changes all the time and everywhere in the sky. To understand certain objects, we may need round-the-clock coverage - a task impossible with one telescope fixed at one point on Earth."
This is where the idea of "Robont" was born - a global network of automatic telescopes, functioning as one device, capable of searching anywhere in the sky at any given time (by transferring the observation to another telescope in the network) for as long as necessary.
The first mystery that Cherubont will try to crack will be the origin of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). These unexpected explosions, detected by a US spy satellite in the late 1960s, are the most violent explosions in the universe since the Big Bang, far more energetic than supernova explosions. However, they are extremely short-lived, lasting a few milliseconds to a few minutes, and then disappear, leaving a glow that lasts for a few hours to a few weeks. The exact cause of them is not yet known, although the leading candidates are the moments of black hole collapse or the merging of exotic objects such as black holes or neutron stars. To study GRBs the telescopes must be aimed at the appropriate area of the sky at high speed.
In October of this year, NASA will launch a new satellite called Swift, which England took a significant part in its development. The Swift will detect gamma-ray bursts in the sky with greater speed and higher accuracy than ever before. The landmarks of each eruption will be transmitted within seconds of their occurrence to ground-based telescopes on Earth, including the Robont telescopes, at an expected rate of about one event every few days. Telescopes of England's new Robont network are equipped to respond within a minute to a message from Swift. The observations in the first minutes after the eruption are very important to allow astronomers to really understand the cause of these violent eruptions. Until now, such observations have been very difficult to make.
The second major goal of Robont is the discovery of Earth-like planets in other star systems. So far, over 100 exoplanets have been discovered, but they all fall under the heading of massive planets (like Jupiter), and many of them are too close to their star, and therefore too hot to harbor life. Robont will take advantage of a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing, in which light from a distant star is refracted and amplified by another object, which cannot be seen in any other way. This phenomenon will be used for the discovery of cool planets. When a star, with a planet revolving around it, goes through the dimming phenomenon, the flickering is created in the light we perceive. Fast reaction telescopes like those of the Robont network can pick up this flicker and track it. In fact, the network has the best chance of all existing facilities to discover another Earth thanks to the size of the telescopes, their successful placements and their sensitive instrumentation.
The Particle Astronomy and Physics Research Council (PPARC) funded the establishment of the Robont 1.0 network, which includes the three giant telescopes, scattered around the world. The "glue" that connects the entire network is software, developed by the "eSTAR" project. The software allows the network to respond intelligently to improve cooperation between the telescopes.
Dr. Jane Steele (Steele) from the eSTAR project said "We can use and develop new cluster technologies, which will eventually replace the WWW network. These networks can be used to develop a network of intelligent agents that can detect changes in the universe and respond to them faster than a human. The agents play the role of 'virtual astronomers'. They collect, analyze and interpret data twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and inform their flesh-and-blood colleagues only when they discover something."
If Robont is successful, it could be expanded to a larger global network of up to six robotic telescopes.
LJMU's Professor Michael Budd adds "We have introduced the world to the design and construction of the most advanced robotic telescopes, and now with Robot 1.0 we are poised to lead the way in exploring some of the most challenging and exciting areas of modern astrophysics."
Translation: Dikla Oren
The press release
Astrophysics connoisseur - the universe
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