Number 329 (Story #1), July 9, 1997 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
VERY LARGE BASELINE INTERFEROMETRY (VLBI) has now spread its arms out into space. In general, if radio astronomers want to resolve fine structure in a distant object they would have to build either a large antenna or a number of smaller but widely spaced antennas and let the signals from these interfere to form a composite radio map of the object. The Very Large Array (VLA-- 27 dishes spread out over 20 miles) and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA--10 dishes spread across 5000 miles of the Earth's surface) have produced very sharp radio pictures of distant targets. Now, by coordinating the joint efforts (and signals) of the VLA, VLBA, and the orbiting Japanese satellite HALCA (the first space- based radio telescope), even sharper images have been captured. So far (in some test imaging) the angular resolution has exceeded one milliarcsecond; at other bands of the radio spectrum, the resolution could be as good as 60 microarcseconds. (See NRAO Website and Physics News Graphics)
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