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Advanced Radio Interferometry between Space and Earth - ARISE

ARISE (Advanced Radio Interferometry between Space and Earth) is a mission consisting of one or two 25-meter radio telescopes in highly elliptical Earth orbit. These telescopes will make observations in conjunction with a large number of radio telescopes on the ground, using the technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This allows them to obtain the highest resolution (10-microarcsecond) images of the most energetic astronomical phenomena in the universe - black holes.

Massive black holes are now thought to be located at the centers of galaxies found throughout the universe. These objects, millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun, have gravities so strong that not even light can escape them. They are the key targets of the proposed ARISE mission, which would address a number of questions about black holes, by zooming in on them with resolution 3000 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Antennas like ARISE are some of the lightest structures ever developed. While ARISE is the size of a tennis court, it is essentially an inflatable Gossamer antenna ten times lighter than existing mission technology. These featherweights of the future are intended to significantly reduce launch costs and provide the sharpest views of the Universe yet.

For additional information:

http://arise.jpl.nasa.gov/

You need to use red and cyan (light blue) glasses, which can be obtained from different sources, including Reel 3-D Enterprises - (Item No. 7021) The typical red and blue glasses will not be suitable to view this image.