Astronomers hope new array will offer solutions to puzzles
Radio telescope near Penticton expected to shed new light on dark energy, fast radio bursts
Solutions to two of the most intriguing puzzles currently facing astronomers could come from an odd-looking radio telescope that finally went live last week near Penticton.
Located about 20 minutes outside the city at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment consists of four steel half-pipes wrapped in wire mesh that together form an array the size of six NHL rinks.
An avalanche of data from radio waves collected by the array is then fed into a supercomputer that can complete seven quadrillion calculations per second.
Information obtained from those radio waves, emitted billions of years ago from the deepest reaches of the universe, is expected to shed new light on two mysterious subjects: dark energy and fast radio bursts.
Tom Landecker, a researcher emeritus at DRAO, said dark energy was discovered in the 1990s and is believed to account for 70 per cent of the energy in the 13.5-billion-year-old universe. It’s also believed to be driving the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe, but what gives rise to the force is unknown.
CHIME will investigate it, Landecker explained, by observing radio emissions from clouds of hydrogen to measure the expansion of the universe between seven and 11 billion years ago, when dark energy first began exerting itself.
The telescope’s other major area of inquiry will be fast radio bursts: high-energy pulses lasting just 1/1000th of a second from unknown sources in deep space.
“They occur somewhere in the sky — we can’t predict where — but they only occur once. They do not repeat,” Landecker said.
Conventional telescopes, he continued, only pick up the bursts if they happen to be pointed in the right place at the right time, while CHIME, which will conduct a complete sweep of the entire Northern Hemisphere every 24 hours as Earth turns, is expected to make search efforts much more fruitful.
“In 10 years, scientists around the world have discovered about 30 of these (bursts), and today there are more theories about what they are than there are events,” said Landecker.
“But we hope in the first few months to discover 30 new fast radio bursts here (at CHIME), and that will give Canada the lead in this exciting astrophysical puzzle.”
Theories about what causes the bursts range from colliding stars to alien spacecraft, but Landecker wouldn’t speculate on the source of the phenomenon until CHIME reports back with data.
Federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan, who was on hand Thursday for the telescope’s unveiling, also declined to hazard a guess.
“I’m a scientist, and why (CHIME) is important is because it’s going to allow us to answer (such) questions,” she said.
Equally important, the minister added, the telescope will lead to advancements in science that could have practical applications in people’s lives, while at the same providing training to the next generation of Canadian researchers.
The $16-million project was funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and provincial governments in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. It was built as a collaboration of 50 scientists from the National Research Council of Canada, the University of B.C., University of Toronto and McGill University.