COONABARABRAN, Australia, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Astronomers have, for the first time, linked radio telescopes in Australia, China and Europe, effectively creating a telescope nearly as big as the Earth.
A radio telescope in Australia was linked with similar facilities in China and Europe in real time late last month, scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said.
The CSIRO telescope near Coonabarabran in New South Wales was used simultaneously with one near Shanghai and five others in Europe to observe a distant galaxy called 3C273.
"This is the first time we've been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart," said Tasso Tzioumis, development manager at CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility. "It's a fantastic technical achievement …"
Data from the telescopes were transmitted to Xi’an, China, where they were watched live by experts in advanced networking during the 24th Asia-Pacific Advanced Network meeting.
"The more widely separated the telescopes, the more finely detailed the observations can be," said Tzioumis. "The diameter of the Earth is 12,750 kilometers (7,922 miles) and the two most widely separated telescopes in our experiment were 12,304 kilometers (7,645 miles) apart, in a straight line."
