New LOFAR Telescope Network Probes Universe's Low-Frequency Radiation to Look for Oldest Regions and Alien Civilizations

LOFAR's View of The Super Massive Black Hole In The 3C61.1 Galaxy via Alpha Galileo

Until recently, radio astronomers have concentrated almost exclusively on the high-energy radiation streaming in towards Earth from exotic stellar bodies like pulsars, quasars, and super-massive black holes. But now, a new European observatory called the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) has begun releasing data on the low-energy radiation that permeates the Universe.

While seemingly less sexy than high-energy research, low-energy radiation actually allows scientists to look even deeper into the past, to within 500,000 years of the Big Bang, and will provide a much more detailed account of some of the most mysterious periods of the Universe's earliest days of existence. LOFAR is also going to be used by SETI to search for faint signs of extraterrestrial life

LOFAR began operating last year, and consists of listening stations in Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Today, scientists released the first images from LOFAR, and the difference in resolution between these new pictures, and those taken using conventional high-energy radio telescopes, is striking to say the least.

The above picture shows how a seemingly uniform super-massive black hole appears much more complex when viewed through LOFAR's more accurate low-energy sensors. Whereas the older pictures just show clumps of radiation, the LOFAR pic details how energy jets out from the center of the black hole, eventually coalescing in hot pools (the yellow balls at the top and bottom of the LOFAR pic on the right) light years away from the black hole center.

LOFAR vs. Regular Radio Telescopes: Low frequency radiation from the a super massive black hole, as taken by traditional radio telescopes (on the left), and LOFAR (on the right).  van Weeren / ASTRON, via ScienceDaily

[Science Daily]