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How Does the Long Wavelength Array Track Objects?

-- Taliyah | October 18, 2020

Question:

How does the Long Wavelength Array track objects?

-- Taliyah

Answer:

The Long Wavelength Array (LWA) operates as a phased array, which means that all of the individual dipole antennas which make up the LWA are electronically connected so that the information that they all receive from the sky comes from a specific direction. The important bit of information they receive, called the “phase” of the signal from the sky, is controlled in each antenna in the array to make each antenna sensitive to the same direction in the sky.

-- Jeff Mangum

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