One of the world’s best radio telescopes with a diameter of 13 meters was put into operation in the mountains of Karachay-Cherkessia in Zelenchukskaya observatory (part of the Institute of applied astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences), TASS reports.
The radio telescope is designed for reducing error while defining coordinates using GLONASS system; it will also be used on behalf of a fundamental science – for developing a celestial coordinate system.
The telescope was developed in record time – two years and three months; the customer is Rosstandart (Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology). In terms of some parameters (operating speed, parameters of the receiving equipment) it outmatches foreign analogues. Along with the 13-meter telescope put into operation on December 26th 2014 in Buryatia the cost of this project was 1 billion rubles. Scientists believe that these new instruments are one of the most important milestones of the Russian astronomy in the last 30 years.
We remind you that RT-13 radio telescope was developed as a part of Kvazar (Quasar) project in Soviet era. It was planned to install five such instruments with identical characteristic in different parts of the country (three ones in Russia, one in Turkmenistan and one more – in Ukraine) in order to assure coordinate-time support of the country.