famous astronomer Roberto Antezana from Chile published a message about the discovery of an unknown planet approaching the Earth. An astrophysicist was able to take photographs of this planet with a telescope. Now there is new information about this object.
Information published Antezana, attracted the attention of other astronomers, who studied the information provided by Roberto and came to the conclusion that this unknown planet is comparable in size to Mars and does not move in an orbit, but it cannot be compared with the movement of asteroids, since this planet has a regular shape.
Studying the images, scientists confirmed the reports Antezany about the fact that inside the image of the planet made with a telescope, strange structures of an unknown substance are observed and an unusual V-shaped plume accompanying the planet.
At the moment, scientists have no idea what it is - an unknown rogue planet or an incredibly giant comet. In any case, it carries a direct threat to the earth, since the trajectory of its movement is directed towards our planet and it will either pass very close to us or possibly collide with the earth.
Antezana handed over the data he collected on this planet to the American space agency NASA. At the moment, NASA has not made any official information or statements about this discovery.
It is interesting that the photographs of this planet obtained by the astronomer coincide with the ideas of the ancient Sumerians about the shape planet Nibiru, which travels in space and is a giant spaceship of the alien race of the Anunnaki.
Ancient Sumerian images of Nibiru
Nibiru, according to the descriptions of the ancient Sumerians, is the planet of the Gods and it is a round disk with wings.
The Sumerian texts say that the Anunnaki quickly made people respect themselves, for they had " an eye located very high, which sees everything that is happening on Earth", and " a fiery beam that pierces any matter».
Having mined the gold and finished the work, Enlil received an order to destroy the human race so that the genetic experiment does not violate the natural development of the planet. But Enki saved several people (?) and said that the person deserved the right to live on. Enlil angry with his brother (perhaps this story is retold in Egyptian myth - the role Enki got Osiris, a Enlil became Set) and demanded to convene a council of the wisest, which allowed people to live on Earth. Later Osiris replaced God, a Set turned into devil at the Jews.
PhD in Physics and Mathematics Kirill Maslennikov, Pulkovo Observatory (St. Petersburg)
I am a professional astronomer at the Pulkovo Observatory. Over the years of work, I was lucky to make observations on a variety of instruments, including the largest in the world at the time of its construction, the 6-meter BTA (Large Azimuthal Telescope, Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, North Caucasus) and the largest in Eurasia, also at the time of construction, 2.6-meter mirror telescope named after G. A. Shain (ZTSh, Crimean Astrophysical Observatory). I visited such places famous for their astroclimate as observatories on the Maidanak Plateau (Uzbekistan) and in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan: Sanglokh and Shorbulak. And yet, visiting Cerro Paranal and the Chajnantor plateau was an unforgettable experience for me. I hope to convey this impression - at least in part - to the readers. It seems to me that many will be interested to know what a real modern observatory is.
A unique system of four VLT "unit" lasers that creates as many as four artificial "stars" for the adaptive optics system at an altitude of 90 km. Photo: ESO.
Panorama of the La Silla Observatory. Photo by Kirill Maslennikov.
The main telescope of the La Silla Observatory, the diameter of the main mirror is 3.6 m. Photo: ESO.
A telescope of new technologies, the diameter of the main mirror is 3.6 m. It is located in a movable rectangular pavilion that rotates with it. This telescope was the first to implement the principle of active optics. Photo: ESO.
The HARPS spectrograph at the La Silla Observatory is one of the world's most famous operational astronomical instruments. Photo: ESO.
One of four VLT auxiliary telescopes with a 1.8 m mirror. It can travel on rail tracks. Photo by Kirill Maslennikov.
One of the four main "units" - telescopes that make up the VLT complex. The diameter of the main mirror of each "unit" is 8.2 m. Photo: ESO.
Fiber optic channels in underground tunnels. Through these channels, all radiation fluxes received by each of the telescopes are reduced to one receiver. This allows them all to work as one mega-telescope or as an interferometer. Photo by Kirill Maslennikov.
VLT "unit" laser, which creates an artificial "asterisk" at an altitude of 90 km, which measures the atmospheric turbulence profile for an adaptive optics system that allows you to correct image distortions. Photo: ESO.
VLT images of Neptune with and without adaptive correction (left) and without it (center), next to a rescaled image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (right). Photo: ESO.
OmegaCam Live Imaging Camera. Consists of 32 CCD matrices. Photo: ESO.
Under the glass dome of the hotel "La Residencia" there is a winter garden and a swimming pool. Photo by Kirill Maslennikov.
Hotel "La Residencia" at the foot of the Cerro Paranal, where the employees of the observatory live. The four-story building is as if immersed in the mountainside. Photo: ESO.
ALMA is a composite radio telescope operating in the interferometric mode, consisting of fifty-four 12-meter and twelve 7-meter parabolic antennas. Photo: P. Horalek/ESO.
The 100-ton "dish" antennas are moved from place to place by a 28-wheel conveyor designed specifically for ALMA. Photo: ESO.
Science and life // Illustrations
An impressive scientific result of the ALMA telescope is the image of the forming planetary system around the star HL Taurus in millimeter waves (image colors are conditional). The structure of the protoplanetary disk and the gaps in it are clearly visible, apparently corresponding to the orbits of the condensing planets. The distance to the star is 450 light years. Illustration: ESO.
But first, two questions need to be cleared up. First: what kind of organization is this - ESO, uniting European astronomers (but without Russia, to my great regret for both sides, it seems to me)? And second: why was it necessary to build indescribably expensive observatories on the other side of the globe, in Chile, to observe stars that are visible at night from any hillock? Both of these questions are closely related.
The unique astroclimate of Chile and the creation of the European Southern Observatory
By the sixties of the last century, the largest revolution since the time of Copernicus took place in astronomy (it is still ongoing). On the one hand, it became possible to observe exceptionally faint and distant objects, on the other hand, infrared and ultraviolet waves were added to the traditional optical waves, and behind them a transition to other spectral ranges was already looming. Astronomy became all-wave. At the same time, it became clear that a rather rare combination of geographic and climatic factors is required to obtain unique astronomical data. And, no matter how expensive and troublesome it was, I had to look around the globe for rare places where:
Overcast weather would be rare;
The air would be clear, without aerosols, and calm, with as little turbulence as possible;
There would be no sources of artificial lighting around - "light pollution".
The combination of all these factors was called "astroclimate", and in search of places with a good astroclimate, expeditions equipped with special measuring equipment began to be equipped. A large telescope is an expensive instrument, and installing it in a place where it will be used halfway is simply throwing money away.
It turned out that there is a special region in the world with an unusual astroclimate: the Chilean Andes in South America. Chile - a strip of the Pacific coast, stretching for about 4500 km from north to south and only 400 km from east to west. Almost the entire length of this stretches a young volcanic chain, blocking the path of air masses from the Pacific Ocean. The northern half of Chile is almost entirely occupied by the highest desert in the world - Atacama. All astroclimatic parameters here turned out to be exceptionally favorable: a fantastic number of clear nights per year (only about 10% of the night time is unsuitable for observations); very high optical transparency of the air and the complete absence of "light pollution" (there are no large settlements in Atacama); an incredibly calm atmosphere (the typical size of the "shudder disk", that is, the angular size of the spot, to which atmospheric turbulence blurs the point image of a star, is usually less than one second of arc here - three to four times less than under average conditions), and, finally, extremely low air humidity (only 0.1-0.2 mm of deposited water in the air column against the average of several tens of millimeters).
As a result, astronomers rushed to Chile, where expeditions from the countries of the New and Old Worlds had identified several places for the construction of observatories. But a modern large observatory, located in a remote, deserted and often inaccessible area, is simply a very expensive object in terms of the volume of construction work and related infrastructure. And if we add to these costs the cost of what the observatory is being built for - giant astronomical instruments, then the resulting amounts reach billions of dollars. No country in Europe could and cannot afford this. This is how the idea of the European South Observatory (ESO) was born: an organization that could accumulate funds from interested European countries for the construction of observatories in the "promised land" of astronomers.
This idea paid off. In 1962, the ESO Declaration was signed by representatives of five countries; it now has sixteen members. In fifty-six years, ESO has opened three observatories in Chile that have become the world's leading research centers, and is now building a fourth, which will have the largest optical telescope in history in six years.
It is worth noting that ESO pays great attention to informing the public about the results of its work. Such scientific and educational activities are called in English "public outreach activities" - the exact Russian equivalent of this concept, apparently, does not exist, and not by chance. In our scientific institutes, it is not customary to regularly report to the general public on the progress of research, and, of course, the academic authorities are shown “good face”. And in the West, this is a common practice, at least in the field of astronomy and space research. Weekly press releases are issued by both the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency. The existence of such a "propaganda" system is important because all these major scientific institutions exist on the money of taxpayers, and in order to continue to receive funds for super-expensive scientific projects, researchers have to "advertise" their achievements in every possible way.
The ESO web site (www.eso.org) is very imposing, and is maintained in nearly thirty languages. Through the efforts of the author of this article, the Russian version of the ESO website (https://www.eso.org/public/russia) has existed for seven years now. ESO rightly positions itself as one of the world's astronomical centers to translate into all these languages the weekly press releases about the latest achievements and news from ESO, there is a team of volunteers called the ESO Network - ESON. As a member of ESON, I received an invitation to visit the ESO observatories.
La Silla Observatory
And then came the exciting moment when I noticed the white domes of telescopes on a distant peak. Hey La Silla! This mountain, 150 km from the city of La Serena, was the first point chosen in the sixties by expeditions of European astronomers to host ESO telescopes. When we got closer, we saw on the neighboring top of Las Campanas the towers of another major observatory - the Carnegie Institute (USA). There are two telescopes with a primary mirror 6.5 m in diameter, and construction has begun on a giant instrument with an aperture of 25 m, which in the next decade is likely to be the third largest in the world (after the E-ELT and the Thirty Meter Telescope).
La Silla looks quite traditional: a whole family of towers of different sizes and shapes. The "main caliber" of the observatory - a telescope with a main mirror with a diameter of 3.6 m - is quite large by the standards of the last century, but by today's standards it is more of an average one. And yet, there are two legendary instruments at La Silla that are worth talking about.
One of them is the famous NTT, New Technology Telescope, which appeared here in March 1989. Its size does not strike the imagination (its main mirror is also 3.6 m in diameter), but it was on it that a number of revolutionary discoveries in telescope construction were tested in the early 1990s. It is mounted according to the altazimuth principle, that is, it can be rotated both in height and in azimuth (although our 6-meter BTA was a pioneer in this). But it is placed not in an ordinary tower with a rotating dome, but in a movable rectangular pavilion, which is integral with the telescope and rotates with it. Thanks to this, the under-dome space disappeared, and with it the eternal concern of astronomers to reduce turbulent air flows in it, which reduce the quality of images. For the small remaining space inside the pavilion, it was possible to design a ventilation system in which turbulence practically disappeared. The main mirror of the telescope differs from the usual massive giant mirrors in its thickness: only 24 cm, 15 times smaller than the diameter! This not only made the telescope much lighter, but, most importantly, made it possible for the first time in astronomy to implement the principle of active optics. On the rear side, 75 electromechanical microdrives - “actuators” are mounted into the thickness of the mirror, with the help of which it is possible to change the curvature of the mirror surface on a microscopic scale. In this way, it is possible to constantly compensate for distortions in the shape of the mirror surface caused by relatively slowly changing factors: temperature deformations, deflections due to the variable orientation of gravity at different positions of the mirror, etc. And this significantly improves the quality of the image given by the telescope. Now active optics systems and flexible thin mirrors are used in almost all large telescopes.
If the NTT is more of a monument to history, although observations continue on it, then the second "wonder of the world" on La Silla, the HARPS spectrograph, is among the most famous operational astronomical instruments in the world. He is called the "planet hunter". It holds the absolute record for the number of exoplanets discovered by the radial velocity method and for the accuracy of velocity measurements. The idea of the method is simple: if a star has a planet, then, turning in its orbit, it attracts the star to itself, which causes the star to move - not much, of course, since its mass is much greater than the mass of the planet. It is practically impossible to notice these displacements directly, by the displacement of the star's coordinates - they are so small. But the Doppler shifts of the lines in the spectrum of a star - towards the red side, when the planet "pulls" the star away from us, or towards the blue, when it pulls it in our direction - turns out to be noticeable! This is where the magnificent parameters of this spectrograph manifest themselves - it is able to record the speed of a star at 0.5-1.0 m / s, which corresponds, for example, to the speed with which a one-year-old baby crawls on the floor. Such fantastic accuracy is achieved by a number of special technical tricks, the simplest of which is placing the spectrograph in a vacuum chamber and deep cooling of the light-sensitive elements.
Of course, HARPS is a great instrument, and La Silla is a large modern observatory. But to look at something like this, it was not worth crossing the ocean - there are such observatories in Europe. On the other hand, if you drive another 600 km to the north, deep into the Atakama Desert, you find yourself, as it were, in a different era in the development of astronomical technology. Here, at the top of Cerro Paranal, the Very Large Telescope - VLT (Very Large Telescope), created by the joint efforts of European science and industry, is installed.
Paranal Observatory
The top of the mountain is cut off, turned into a flat concrete platform. There are four futuristic rectangular towers on it, arranged asymmetrically, but in a certain order: three in a line, one on the side. When looking at them, the epithet "cyclopean" comes to mind - perhaps because the cyclops is famous for its single eye, and inside each tower there is a giant "eye": an altazimuth reflector with a main mirror a little over 8 m in diameter. These are the "units" - the main telescopes of the complex. In addition to them, there are four auxiliary telescopes with mirrors 1.8 m in diameter. They are installed in compact spherical domes that can run on straight rail tracks laid on the platform. In a separate case - the Central control panel. All this together is the Very Large Telescope.
The main "trick" is that the eight telescopes of the complex can work either singly (which is not surprising in itself) or in various combinations, up to the fact that all together they can make up a single mega-telescope. To do this, fiber optic channels are laid in underground tunnels. With their help, all the fluxes of radiation received by each of the telescopes are reduced to one receiver. This happens in two modes. You can simply merge all the streams together, increasing the intensity of the received radiation and thereby registering weaker objects. But in this case, information about the phase of light waves will be lost. But if this information is saved, it turns out that all the mirrors receiving radiation serve as fragments of the same giant pupil. And we will be able to distinguish image details that are as many times finer than obtained with a separate telescope, how many times the distance between the mirrors of these telescopes (the size of our giant pupil) is greater than the diameter of a single mirror. These are the laws of physical optics: due to diffraction at the edges of the pupil, the telescope builds an image of a star not in the form of a point, but in the form of a disk of finite size, surrounded by concentric rings decreasing in brightness. The size of this disc is inversely proportional to the diameter of the pupil.
In order for all the mirrors to really become part of a single pupil, it is necessary to ensure that all four signals arrive at the receiver in the same phase. The phase can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the optical signal paths. But this must be done with very great accuracy, because the wavelength of light in the visible range is half a thousandth of a millimeter. Therefore, the slightest temperature changes or vibrations can disrupt the phasing.
The method that I have just described is called optical interferometry, and several telescopes that form a single instrument are called an interferometer. Thus, the VLT can operate in the VLTI: Very Large Telescope Interferometer mode. It is precisely for the implementation of this mode that the possibility of movement of auxiliary telescopes along rail tracks is provided: after all, the maximum resolution is not achieved over the entire field, as would happen if we had a real huge solid mirror, but only along the axis connecting individual mirrors. Mobile telescopes make it possible to orient this axis in such a way that it passes exactly through the structurally important details of the observed object.
Here is just one example of delicately accurate observations made using interferometry: published in the summer of 2018, the results of measurements of the motion of stars in the immediate vicinity of a giant supermassive black hole lurking in the center of our galaxy. The fact that there is a black hole with a mass of about 4 million Suns in the center of the Galaxy has long been suspected, in particular, by the powerful X-ray radiation coming from there. But in optics and in the infrared range, it remains invisible, and the only optical effect by which it betrays its presence is the trajectories of stars close to it, bent by a monstrous gravitational field. Until the very end of the last century, it was impossible to trace these curved orbits - too high an angular resolution was required to see the movements of stars located at a distance of only 120 astronomical units from a black hole at a distance of almost thirty thousand light years. This is the outer dimension of the Kuiper belt in the solar system! And now, on the VLTI with the GRAVITY receiver, to solve this problem, it was possible to realize a resolution of about two milliseconds of arc. With such a resolution, a telescope could see, say, a pencil on the surface of the moon! An important result of this work was, in particular, a high-precision confirmation of the predictions of the general theory of relativity regarding the orbital properties of stars close to the gravitational monster. On the scale of the Galaxy, such a test of the theory was carried out for the first time - until now it was possible only within the solar system.
However, it is very difficult to implement the interferometry mode for optical waves: the phasing accuracy can only be maintained for several (at best, 10–20) minutes. Therefore, most of the time, VLT telescopes still work separately. But even in this seemingly normal mode, they have one remarkable feature: the VLT “units” (more precisely, so far one of them, the fourth) have, perhaps, the most advanced adaptive optics system used on large telescopes in the world.
Talking about the NTT telescope, I have already mentioned active optics - changing the shape of a flexible primary mirror under computer control. But this method is only suitable for compensating for distortions of the mirror surface caused by slowly changing factors. Meanwhile, the main enemy of astronomers, nullifying the enormous potential resolving power of giant mirrors, is atmospheric turbulence. Turbulent air flows blur the images of stars, deform flat wave fronts coming from the stars to the Earth, and as a result, instead of diffraction images, the angular size of which can be made very small by increasing the size of the "pupil", we see through the telescope the so-called tremor disks - shapeless blurry "blobs". ". Under normal atmospheric conditions, the average size of such a "blot" is about 2-4 arc seconds; in places with a very good astroclimate, it can decrease to half a second of arc. And this despite the fact that the theoretical resolution of, say, an 8-meter telescope is 100 times higher! It was very difficult to come to terms with this. For a while, it seemed that if we climbed high enough into the mountains, we would leave the turbulent layers of the atmosphere below. According to another point of view, the main thermal eddies occur in the surface layer, and one can try to cut them off by hanging wide "fields" on astronomical towers so that the tower looks like a huge "mushroom". Neither idea worked out, and the only way to get rid of atmospheric distortions in star images seemed to be to launch telescopes into near-Earth space, outside the atmosphere.
This is where the methods of active optics found their application. At first, it seemed that it was impossible to use them to compensate for atmospheric distortions because of the high frequency of the latter: the characteristic time of the "freezing" of the atmosphere is approximately 0.01 s. To measure the profile of the wave front, to calculate the deformations of the flexible mirror necessary for its alignment, and, finally, to bend the mirror with the help of actuators in a hundredth of a second - this task looked absolutely unrealistic. But in two or three decades it was solved! There were three key points. First, it is not a huge, massive primary mirror that can be deformed, but a thin optical element in a converging beam or exit pupil (in the case of VLT, this is a flexible secondary mirror). Secondly, the speed of control computers has increased many times over. And finally, thirdly, an ingenious method was invented for measuring the atmospheric turbulence profile precisely in the direction of the studied star. Indeed, the image of the star itself cannot be used to measure atmospheric distortions - usually very faint objects are observed, and in order to properly probe the atmosphere, a lot of light is needed. Yes, and we need the light of an object in order to explore it, and not to waste precious photons on measuring turbulence in the earth's atmosphere! It is not worth hoping that a bright star will be at a distance of two dozen seconds from the object - this happens extremely rarely. And it is useless to use a bright star somewhere at a distance - there the profile of the wave front will be completely different. What to do?
A witty way out of this impasse was invented by Princeton physicist Will Happer at the height of the "star wars" between the USSR and the USA - naturally, then this method was classified and only 20 years later it began to be used not for pointing laser weapons, but for astronomy. Its idea is that a powerful laser is installed on the telescope, which, with a well-focused beam, excites atoms in a layer of gaseous sodium at an altitude of 90 km in the atmosphere. Sodium begins to glow, and by pointing the laser at the desired point in the sky, we get a bright luminous star-shaped point there - an “artificial star”. Since all turbulent layers lie below 90 km, we can use this source to probe wavefront parameters in a small area of the sky where the object we are studying is located.
The task of correcting atmospheric distortions still remains fantastically difficult - let's not forget that the characteristic "freezing time" of turbulent cells is equal to a hundredth of a second! During this time, it is necessary to analyze the nature of atmospheric distortions in an artificial star, calculate the corresponding compensations for a flexible optical element and work them out mechanically. And yet, the speed of modern control computers and the perfection of the optical-mechanical part of the system allow this to be achieved! And now most of the world's major telescopes are equipped with "laser guns" that shoot their beams into the night sky during observations. But the VLT excels here too: One of its main telescopes, UT4, has recently installed an adaptive optics system that includes not one, but four powerful lasers, each of which sends a 30-centimeter-thick column of intense orange light into the sky. In the field of view next to the object, not one, but as many as four “artificial stars” now shine, which, of course, improves the accuracy of measuring turbulence.
The results of this system are very impressive. This summer, for example, it was tested at the VLT in a special “laser tomography” mode with the MUSE receiver: in combination with the GALACSI adaptive optics module. In the wide field mode, distortions are corrected in a field with a diameter of one arc minute with a pixel size of 0.2x0.2 "". The small field mode covers only 7.5 arcseconds, but at much smaller pixel sizes: 0.025x0.025"". In this case, the maximum theoretical resolution of the telescope is realized.
One could talk for a long time about the masterpieces of astronomical technology of the Paranal Observatory. All telescopes of the VLT complex are equipped with unique receivers specially developed by ESO: spectrographs, polarimeters, direct imaging cameras (the largest of them, OmegaCam, consists of 32 CCD arrays with a total size of 26x26 cm and a volume of 256 million pixels with a field of view of one square degree). Each of these wonderful instruments, as well as the two largest wide-angle telescopes in the world, VST and VISTA, installed on Paranal, on which star charts and surveys are compiled, could be written separately. But before we leave Paranal and head deeper into the Atacama Desert, to the ALMA Observatory, I would like to tell you a little about how ESO employees live here: astronomers, engineers, and support staff.
Applications for observing time on ESO instruments are considered by a special scientific committee, which draws up a program of observations for the year ahead. In principle, any astronomer can apply to participate in this program, but scientists from ESO member countries, of course, have an advantage. However, if the application is accepted, this does not mean that the specialists who submitted it must fly to Chile. For several decades, observations at large telescopes have been carried out remotely - the authors of the application participate in them using modern communication channels. Nevertheless, professionals must still directly conduct observations on the spot, operate the telescope and receivers while in the CPA room. Therefore, a group of astronomers is constantly present at Paranal, whose task is to carry out program observations. They work "on a rotational basis", in shifts, calling "on the mountain" every two or three months. These specialists are recruited mainly in Europe, in ESO member countries, although there are also Chilean astronomers among them. But, of course, they do not fly every two months from Europe - they move to the capital of Chile, Santiago, for the duration of the contract, many with their families. In addition, at Paranal, as in any large observatory, there are many technical employees: electronics engineers, mechanics, drivers. How is their life organized?
Looking from the VLT observation platform, far below, at the foot of the Cerro Paranal, a spherical glass dome can be seen. This is the roof of the La Residencia Hotel. The entire four-story building is, as it were, immersed in the mountainside, the outer wall with windows looks in the direction opposite to the top. Inside, everything is provided so that people who work hard in a difficult time regime and often in very harsh weather conditions can relax. Under a wide glass dome - a winter garden with tropical plants, a large swimming pool, sports equipment, a restaurant open around the clock. It looks like we are on a big cruise ship. The remarkable building has already been awarded an international award and even got into the cinema as the lair of the “main villain” in one of the James Bond films (“Quantum of Solace”).
But it's time to move on - again to the north and then away from the ocean, into the mountains. At 500 km from Paranal, at an altitude of 5000 m above sea level, at the foot of the Likankabur volcano lies the Chajnantor high plateau, on which perhaps the largest-scale ground-based astronomical project in history has been implemented: ALMA.
At the very beginning of our story, among the main factors affecting the quality of the astroclimate, we mentioned low humidity. The entire territory of the Atacama Desert is characterized by anomalously low air humidity, but when you climb to a very high altitude, the dryness becomes truly incredible: if you precipitate, “squeeze out” all the moisture from the air column from the ground layer to airless outer space, then the height of the “puddle” formed will be less than a millimeter. There are very few places like this in the world. The biggest benefit from this low humidity is at the wavelengths most susceptible to water vapor absorption: millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. This is already the radio range: telescopes operating on such waves look like parabolic dish antennas. Radiation in this part of the spectrum carries information about the cold regions of the Universe - star formation regions hidden by a dense dust curtain through which visible light does not pass, about protoplanetary accretion disks, mysterious galaxies of the early Universe, visible at such gigantic distances that, as a result of redshift, their radiation went far into the long-wavelength part of the spectrum. Here the solution of many key problems of the science of the Universe is hidden, and yet it is for this radiation in ordinary places that the Earth's atmosphere presents an almost impenetrable barrier.
And at the beginning of our century, ESO, in cooperation with the National Radio Astronomy Observatories of the USA and Japan, began to build a grandiose “grid” here: a composite radio telescope, like the VLT, operating in the interferometric mode, which, due to the significantly longer wavelength in this spectral range, is implemented much more reliably and more efficient. Thus was born ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array. The scale of the project was truly staggering: the array of telescopes on a high mountain plateau consists of fifty-four 12-meter and twelve 7-meter parabolic antennas, capable of moving and forming interferometric bases over a section 16 km across. After 15 years of construction, which required the entire power of the industry in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia (Canada, Taiwan and Korea also joined the project), the giant phased antenna array has been operating at full capacity for the third year. The project cost was about $1.5 billion.
The 100-ton "plates" are carried from place to place by two bright yellow 28-wheel transporters designed specifically for ALMA. Their names are "Otto" and "Lor" - they say the designer named them after his little children. The antenna installation process is carried out remotely: the driver, who is also the operator, leaves the conveyor cabin, holding the remote control in his hands, and controls both the movement of the conveyor and the installation of the antenna on a triangular concrete platform with millimeter accuracy.
The primary processing of data coming from the antennas is carried out by a supercomputer installed here - the so-called correlator. This is one of the most powerful computers in the world: its performance is 17 quadrillion operations per second. During the night, the grid collects from half to one and a half terabytes of information, the storage and distribution of which in themselves represent a serious problem.
The conditions under which astronomers and engineers work on the Chajnantor Plateau are much harsher than those on Cerro Paranal. Here the "Martian" landscape - bare soil, covered with volcanic bombs, almost no vegetation. 5000 m above sea level is a serious height, people at it quickly begin oxygen starvation, “altitude sickness”. Therefore, all technical services, living and working premises, laboratories, offices are located in the base camp: the Technical Support Center at an altitude of about 3000 m. The shift rises to the scientific site for no more than 8 hours. Almost everyone I saw on the plateau uses oxygen machines. Visitors who do not take part in the work of the shift are raised to the plateau for only 2 hours. Before climbing, everyone undergoes a short medical examination.
The array of telescopes on the Chajnantor Plateau has only recently been operating, but significant scientific results have already been obtained on it. Perhaps the most impressive of them is the image of the forming planetary system around the star HL Taurus. Another very important area of ALMA's work is the study of objects of the "early Universe", galaxies located on the far edge of the region of outer space observed from the Earth and visible to us in an era that is only a billion years from the moment of the Big Bang. In the spring of 2018, publications appeared on observations made at ALMA of a mass merger of galaxies at a distance of more than 12 billion light years. These observations call into question generally accepted ideas about the evolution of galaxies.
Construction of the ELT supertelescope
The story of ESO's observatories in Chile would not be complete without adding another exotic toponym to La Silla, Cerro Paranal and the Chajnantor Plateau: Cerro Armazones. On this peak, 20 km from Paranal, the construction of a platform for the installation of the ELT - Extremely Large Telescope, the largest telescope in the world, is already underway. In Russia, this name is usually translated as "Extremely large telescope", although, of course, other translations are possible.
The ELT will have a main mirror diameter of 39 m. In the previous part of my story, I have already used up all conceivable Russian synonyms for the adjective “huge” and now I don’t know what to call this engineering structure. The staff of the ESO education department posted on the observatory's website a whole gallery of pictures, in which the ELT tower is impressively compared with famous architectural behemoths. But ELT will leave behind not only them, but also two other astronomical colossuses of North American origin under construction: the 25-meter Magellan telescope, which will also be installed in Chile, on Mount Las Campanas, next to La Silla, and a 30-meter telescope ( apparently, there were not enough adjectives for its name) on the Hawaiian Islands, on the top of Mauna Key.
The new ESO observatory, the fourth in a row, is scheduled to open in 2024. Without a doubt, it will take its place among the scientific wonders of the modern world.
Talk about the arrival of the mysterious planet Nibiru has been disturbing the network for about ten years - since the first leak from the secret US observatory in Antarctica. During this time, an incredible number of video fakes have appeared, which allegedly depict an incomprehensible luminous planet.
There are many and absolutely real videos that no one knows how to interpret. As a rule, we are talking about two suns captured NEARBY somewhere on the horizon. As a result, some people in glasses, with beards and in white coats begin to splash boiling saliva from the TV, ardently arguing about some kind of halo and the photographer imagined everything. The sun somewhere is reflected from something there and such an optical effect is obtained.
We are not experts in optics, so we fully admit theories with some drops in the atmosphere. However, on June 6th (US time) a video appeared on the net, which even enlightened academics will not be able to comment on. We won't be commenting on it. Look, everything is fantastically interesting.
Unknown planet the size of Mars is approaching the Earth
We already wrote that the famous astronomer Roberto Antezana from Chile published a message about the discovery of an unknown planet approaching the Earth. An astrophysicist was able to take photographs of this planet with a telescope. Now there is new information about this object.
The information published by Antezana attracted the attention of other astronomers who studied the information provided by Roberto and came to the conclusion that this unknown planet is comparable in size to Mars and does not move in orbit, but it cannot be compared with the movement of asteroids, since this planet has a regular shape .
By studying the images, scientists confirmed Antezana's reports that inside the image of the planet made with a telescope, there are strange structures from an unknown substance and an unusual V-shaped plume accompanying the planet.
At the moment, scientists have no idea what it is - an unknown rogue planet or an incredibly giant comet. In any case, it carries a direct threat to the earth, since the trajectory of its movement is directed towards our planet and it will either pass very close to us or possibly collide with the earth.
Antezana passed on the data he had collected on this planet to the American space agency NASA. At the moment, NASA has not made any official information or statements about this discovery.
It is interesting that the photographs of this planet obtained by the astronomer coincide with the ideas of the ancient Sumerians about the shape of the planet Nibiru, which travels in space and is a giant spaceship of the alien race of the Anunnaki.
Nibiru, according to the descriptions of the ancient Sumerians, is the planet of the Gods and it is a round disk with wings.
The ancient Sumerians knew about the existence of another planet beyond Pluto and this planet was called Nibiru and it passes through our solar system approximately every 3600 years and the time for its new appearance has already come.
It is worth noting that quite recently, scientists ridiculed this information, but then everything changed when official science was forced to announce the discovery of a wandering Planet-X, but here scientists were cunning and depriving Pluto of the title of a planet, they began to call the new planet not Planet-X, and Planet-9, in order to avoid comparing its name with the name of this planet among the Sumerians.
The Sumerians believed that there was an extraterrestrial civilization on Nibiru, the Anunnaki lived there, which in Sumerian means "descended from heaven." On the tablets there are records that they are very tall, from three to four meters, and their life expectancy is several centuries.
When Nibiru got close enough to the Earth, the Anunnaki got into their spaceships, which looked like long capsules tapering in front, spewing flames from the back, and, under the command of Captain Enki, landed in the Sumer region. There they built an astroport named Eridu. Not finding gold there, they began to look for it all over the planet and finally found it in a valley in southeast Africa, in the center of the region opposite the island of Madagascar.
At first, the Anunnaki workers, led by Enlil, Enki's younger brother, built and developed mines. But soon they rebelled, and alien scientists led by Enki decided to use genetic engineering to create servants, breeding hybrids based on the primates of the Earth.
So 300 thousand years ago a man appeared whose only purpose was to serve aliens. By the way, the very appearance of Homo sapiens 300 thousand years ago, scientists ridiculed, until just the other day they published news that reported the discovery of a human skeleton, which is 300 thousand years old.
The Sumerian texts say that the Anunnaki quickly made people respect themselves, for they had "an eye located very high, which sees everything that is happening on Earth", and "a fiery ray that pierces any matter."
After extracting the gold and finishing the work, Enlil was ordered to destroy the human race so that the genetic experiment would not disturb the natural development of the planet. But Enki saved a few people (Noah's Ark?) and said that the man had earned the right to live on. Enlil was angry with his brother (perhaps this story is retold in Egyptian myth - the role of Enki went to Osiris, and Enlil became Set) and demanded to convene a council of the wisest, which allowed people to live on Earth.
In August 1942, the Nazis found themselves deep in the rear of the Soviet Union. They reached ... the mouth of the Yenisei - a river flowing through the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. And it's not a joke. True, the Germans did not reach there, but sailed - on the battleship Admiral Scheer. UNSUCCESSFUL HUNT The battleship left Norway on August 16, 1942. The date was not chosen by chance. August - September - the best...
Rope stock.
China's economic history begins and ends with liquidityStock of ropeChina's economic history begins and ends with liquidity. Yuan strives for freedom. By accusing China of manipulating the currency, the Trump administration has chosen the wrong tactic. If the goal of the trade war is to clear the field for American companies, the president ...
Gorgeous scam from the times of the USSR. My favorite case is with the lottery ticket.
There were lottery tickets in the Soviet past, they cost 30 kopecks. It was possible to win a car, and other things, and sums of money, and 1 ruble. The last win was much more frequent than the others. Moral first: When I advise clients on real estate transactions, I never get tired of repeating - transactions are large, there are risks, so you need to pay more attention to me...
"Tokyo Nightmare": the true story of a bloody crime in Japan.
Meet the audio novelty of Richard Lloyd Parry "Dark Eaters: Tokyo Nightmare"! A gripping documentary detective tells the story of a mysterious disappearance in Japan. In the early 2000s, the parents of a young Englishwoman Lucy, who left to work in the Land of the Rising Sun, sounded the alarm: her daughter had not been in touch for a long time. Tokyo police were in no hurry to...
Shrike impales victims on branches.
The end of March. I was returning from a long walk through the awakening, but still winter forest. It was only a short distance from my house when, passing through the wooden buildings of the private sector, I was stopped by a special cry of a great tit, heard from the mountain ash in the palisade of one of the houses. Experience suggested that her voice was a signal of mortal danger. ...
The mystery of the Bronze Bird Treasure.
Many in childhood enthusiastically read the extremely popular book of A.N. Rybakov "The Bronze Bird" or watched the film of the same name. It is understandable: according to the plot, the heroes-young pioneers are searching for a mysterious treasure in an old landowner's estate left by its owners. What kind of estate and what kind of noble family served as prototypes for this legendary book...
COURT OF GOD The story of wartime.
This story was told to me by an aircraft designer, blockade survivor, war veteran Kirill Vasilyevich Zakharov, who took my word not to publish it while he was alive. And now, alas, the time has come. The story happened back in 1943, in the fall. The unit in which Kirill Vasilievich served was on the Dnieper, opposite the Lyutezhsky bridgehead, preparing for an attack on Kyiv. One...
Toilet disaster of a German submarine.
In the 1970s, British Petroleum oil pipeline workers came across a curious object located in Craden Bay (Scotland), about a hundred meters deep. It turned out to be an old German submarine. In fact, it was one of the last submarines to sink during World War II. But unlike many others, this submarine did not sink from...
The captured Russian spoke about the scheme of deceiving Ukrainians with the exchange “Their side will definitely try to fool ours.”
Russian Igor Kimakovsky was captured in Ukraine four years ago. Since then, he has been included in the exchange list five times. Now he is waiting to return home again. He gave us his reasoning about why the exchange has been dragged out for a week already and what threatens those Russians who are still lucky to return. The captured Russian told about the scheme of deception of the Ukrainian...
Airplanes with prisoners took off from Russia and Ukraine, who were being prepared for exchange between countries. Two special planes took them from Vnukovo and Boryspil airports and flew towards Kyiv and Moscow, respectively. This was reported on September 7 by an RTVI correspondent, as well as TASS. On the afternoon of September 7, two planes of the presidential squadron took off from Vnukovo and Boryspil ...
Black Countess.
"In three years. After the absurd accidental death of the count, she got married. And she regained her title, lost position, wealth and a decent lifestyle. She settled in a castle near Paris. Small, cozy, with the spirit of antiquity and progress. An escort of servants, a magnificent crew, a couple of cars, selected trotters in the stable. And a huge park-garden in which she taught herself to walk ...
