“Lunar Observatory”

Innovation at the interface of space-astrophysics and geophysics.

Joris van EnstDirector Multidisciplinary Research

Drs. Joris.W.A. van Enst

LOFAR: Director Multidisciplinairy research

Background Government Ministery of Education, Culture and Science: Head Sciences DepartmentESA council/

ESA Science programmeESA EO/Mannend Space

Board NLR/NIVR/Dutch Space;

Knowledge institute for astronomical instrumentation

Our mission: “Making astronomical

discoveries happen

through innovative observational facilities”

Technical laboratory

Radio telescope in Westerbork

JIVE

ASTRON Institute200 employees

• Radio Observatory• Technology Development

– Opto-mechanical– Radio / IT

• International center– Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe– HQ global Square Km Array project– Radio spectrum management

• Regional expertise center– Commercial orientation

6 okt 2004 Bezoek NWO-AB3 km

Imaging the sky with radio waves- a large aperture telescope is ‘synthesized’ in software

by sampling the wavefront with small antennas

After 12 hours, the WSRT becomes a telescope 3 km in

diameter, with images100x sharper!

Westerbork SynthesisRadio Telescope

European VLBI Network:Telescopes connected by mail

Dwingeloo

…and we use hundreds of tapes per session

1-10 Gbps

China

USA

South Africa

Russia

Post-2005 (RadioNet, Géant):Telescopes connected by fibres

30 Gbps – 2 Tbps

Processing of wavefront by mechanical algorithms

Processing of wavefront by electronics and software

The LOFAR opportunity

•A new concept for a radio telescope; •Using many (25.000) radio antannas;•Using a extremely powerfull central processor;•Covering a large area;•Leading to a software telescope with the capability to measure in real time

Wide Area Sensor Networks use large numbers of cheap

sensors, like the LOFAR antennas….

The development of (wireless) sensors forfighting Phytophtora

… and the vibration sensors for geophysical

research.

LOFARarray configuration

Central core- plus -

45 stations100 km max baseline

Sensor fields

Central processor

Fibre optics data transport

Radio antennas are “radio sensors”)

So: other sensor applications are possible

LOFAR is a multidisciplinairy adaptive wide area sensor network

IBM Blue Gene L

30 TFLOPS

4th in the world

The LOFAR opportunity

Complex modelling guided by streaming data (real time) for

Astronomy and other applications like

geophysicsSo, bring (any) environment

on line

Lunar Observatory

Astronomy

and Ionosphere

Now casting

Geophysics

Infrasound

Agriculture Crop

Management

Water and soil management

Energy management (wind)energy

Astroparticle physics/detector

LOFAR, the current status

LOFARPhase 2

intoNiedersaksen,

Schleswig-Holstein,Nordrhein-Westfalen

Ultimate LOFARto

Växjö SE Cambridge UK

Potsdam DENançay FR

etc

Dwingeloo/Groningen

1-10 Gbps

China

USA

South Africa

Russia

LOFAR phase 3:LOFAR data processing centre

30 Gbps – 2 Tbps

A Europe-wide Sensor Network is under consideration as FP7

GMES ‘Research Infrastructure’

We need glass fibre optics

The GÉANT network can act as fibre optics

network, with IBM/Blue Gene L in the centre

1-10 Gbps

China

USA

South Africa

Russia

Atlantic continen-tal margin

Northwestern European Platform

Alps/Carpathians-

Pannonian basin-system

Iberia

Paris

basin

Aegean

Lunar observatory

• LOFAR Science on the Moon

• Astronomy

• Geophysics

• Challenge for us, ESA and Europe

The Lunar Observatory

Joris van Enst

Thank you for your attention