Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jan 11, 2006 18:34:22 GMT -6
Scientists 'RAVE-ing' about most ambitious star survey ever
An international team of astronomers today announced the first results from the Radial Velocity Experiment, an ambitious all-sky spectroscopic survey aimed at measuring the speed, temperature, surface gravity and composition of up to a million stars passing near the sun.
The team is using the "six-degree field" multi-object spectrograph on the 1.2-meter UK Schmidt Telescope at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, located at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. The instrument is capable of obtaining spectroscopic information for as many as 150 stars at once.
Current RAVE limits show that stars would need to move faster than around 500 kilometers per second to escape, more than twice as fast as the sun is moving around the galactic center. At that escape speed, it would take less than eight seconds to travel from Baltimore to Los Angeles.
"Some groups believe that our neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy -- also known as M31 -- is the most massive galaxy in our local group. But we suspect from our early results that our Milky Way is actually the local heavyweight," said Martin Smith of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. "We are, with RAVE, on the verge of an answer."
Full story here: www.physorg.com/news9787.html
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It's an great and ambitous project.
