Interesting project

[Andrew A. Apold]

>On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, M Holmes wrote:
>
>> > Apparently NASA have decided to
>> > send their next `interferometry mission' (a project aimed at finding
>> > Earth-sized planets revolving around nearby suns) to this Andromedae.


Always doubt any e-mail claim that starts with "Apparently".

Interferometry involves studying the way light (and other EM)
interferes with itself.  It does
not currently involve sending stuff anywhere, other than in orbit
to avoid the normal atmospheric interference, I think they were
trying to set up a grid of orbiting radio telescopes...

I think this is being used to combine observations from a number
of them to effectively simulate as if we had a much larger
telescope.

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"I was corrupt before I had power!" - Random

Andrew Apold