A giant European telescope rises as U.S. rivals await rescue

Re:A giant European telescope rises as U.S. rivals await rescue by isilofi on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @05:29AM (#38096179)

Light wavelengths are in the order of nanometers. Radio wavelengths (were interferometry is "solved" are in the order of kilometers to centimeters. While it is possible to build structures that are unmoving in the order of centimeters, it is hard to impossible to do that in the order of nanometers. That doesn't make direct optical interferometry impossible, just quite a bit harder, see e.g. LIGO.

And for doing timing-based interferometry over a distance, the needed timing precision limits your resolution. 1km/c is in the order of 10^-6s (µs), "easy", 1cm/c is in the order of 10^-11s (ps) "possible", 1nm/c is at 10^-18s (as) "quite impossible".

And for the layman, a factor of 10^-6, or 6 orders of magnitude in time are like "a second to two weeks" and "two weeks to far back into the stone age".

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Re:A giant European telescope rises as U.S. rivals await rescue by echelon on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @02:13PM (#38102429)

Phenomenal explanation. Thank you!

> 1km/c is in the order of 10^-6s (µs), "easy", 1cm/c is in the order of 10^-11s (ps) "possible", 1nm/c is at 10^-18s (as) "quite impossible".

Wow. That's really sad that the orders of magnitude in resolution required escapes beyond our limits of detection.

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