Physics

Matt sent me a link to some good photos of the LHC.  They are all interesting in both an artistic and scientific point of view.  Check them out if you haven't already.

So you might think the world's largest radio telescope is the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.  For the most part, that is correct; Arecibo is the world's largest single radio telescope.

But with today's technology, it is possible to use many telescopes together to simulate one giant telescope.  This specific technique is called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI.  The world's largest emulated radio telescope uses VLBI with data from the Arecibo Observatory along with several other radio telescopes spread across the world.

With VLBI, astronomers can record images immensly more detailed than anything possible with a single radio telescope.  The EXPReS project is the first major, worldwide VLBI test.  On May 22nd, the team conducted their first run, successfully gathering and processing images from radio telescopes across four continents to emulate a telescope with a diameter of nearly 11,000 km.  Yes, that is definitely the world's largest telescope.  VLBI is opening many new possibilities, allowing us to understand more about how the universe works.  If you're a geek like me, that's cool.

Read more about VLBI here, here, here, here, and here.