telescope

Scallops may look like simple creatures, but the seafood delicacy has 200 eyes that function remarkably like a telescope, using living mirrors to focus light, researchers said on Thursday. Most creatures' eyes have lenses that focus light. But scallops have concave mirrors at the back of their eyes. Scientists have known since the 1960s that Pecten scallops see by reflecting light off these concave mirrors onto the retina above, said the report in the journal Science. Some crustaceans and deep sea fish also have…

SANTIAGO: Construction began in Chile on Friday on the European Extremely Large Telescope, which when completed will be the world's largest optical telescope, some five times larger than the top observing instruments in use today. The size of the ELT has the potential to transform our understanding of the universe, say its backers, with its main mirror that will measure some 39 meters (43 yards) across. Located on a 3,000 meter-high mountain in the middle of the Atacama desert, it is due to begin operating in 2024.…

BEIJING: Humanity’s best bet at detecting aliens is a giant silver Chinese dish the size of 30 football fields -- one that simultaneously showcases Beijing's abilities to deploy cutting-edge technologies and ignore objectors' rights as it seeks global prominence. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in the country's southwest, which was launched in September and cost 1.2 billion yuan ($180 million) to build, is the world’s largest radio telescope. Once fully operational, FAST will be able to…

GREENBELT: As the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates 25 years in space this week, NASA and its international partners are building an even more powerful tool to look deeper into the universe than ever before.