UNM, in collaboration with other educational institutions in the Southwest, is organizing lobbying efforts to have New Mexico selected as the site for a new imaging radio astronomy telescope.
The Low Frequency Array Telescope, also known as LOFAR, will be a major new multi-element imaging telescope designed to operate within low frequency ranges.
Neb Duric, professor of astronomy and physics at UNM and the scientific coordinator for the Southwest Consortium, said New Mexico's chance of being chosen is good.
"We have a lot of resources to facilitate the building of the array," Duric said. "We have enough land to put it on and enough existing technology to build off of. New Mexico has the highest number of Ph.D.s in the nation. Two of the three national laboratories are located here. I believe that if New Mexico were chosen as a site for LOFAR, we could bring a lot to the project."
Headed by UNM, the Southwest Consortium also includes New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State University, the University of Texas and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
The consortium is responsible for submitting proposals and coordinating activities to present to the LOFAR Science Consortium.
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Namir Kassim, an astronomer for the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., conceived LOFAR. After the initial studies and research were completed, the LOFAR Science Consortium was formed.
The consortium's members, who include the Naval Research Lab, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory, and Astron, a research facility in the Netherlands, have begun preliminary designs and the early stages of site selection.
Going up against New Mexico to be considered are sites in western Australia, the Netherlands and other locations in the southwestern United States.
Jack McIver, professor of physics and deputy vice provost of research at UNM, agreed that New Mexico has a very good chance of being chosen as the site for LOFAR.
"If LOFAR was built here, New Mexico and UNM would be focal points for radio astronomy," McIver said. "New types of science and engineering would also emerge and would attract students and faculty from around the world. Not only would the state benefit, but the students as well."
Duric said that a project such as LOFAR would put UNM and New Mexico on the map when it comes to radio astronomy.
"LOFAR would be a fantastic way to attract students, both graduate and undergraduate," Duric said. "And not just astronomy students either. LOFAR requires people from various and diverse backgrounds, from engineers to advertisers. Everyone could benefit."
LOFAR will have higher resolution and sensitivity than any other existing telescope. According to the LOFAR Web site, it will also be one of the largest radio astronomy telescope systems in the world.
The Web site states that one station of LOFAR will cover a football field and the entire project will consist of 100 stations. The project's design will give it higher resolution and sensitivity than existing low frequency telescopes, according to its Web site.
Even though the project's site has yet to be selected, LOFAR is expected to be fully operational by 2008.
