All my life mankind has been looking at night into the starry sky, trying to understand what is happening where the distant stars shine.
And only a few decades people have the opportunity to observe the distant celestial bodies at a new level, not in the primitive medieval telescopes. For supervision over heavenly bodies build more and more new observatories.
At an altitude of more than three kilometers
So they decided to build an observatory in Lebanon. The building of the new science center will be located at an altitude of more than three thousand meters. They decided to build an observatory at this altitude by chance. The construction site is the Znanir Peak, located near the city of Besherre. This settlement is located in the north of Lebanon.
No atmospheric turbulence
At an altitude of three thousand meters, there is no atmospheric turbulence as present in the old Lebanese observatory. The Henry Lee Observatory was built back in the 19th century on the premises of the American University in Beirut. Humidity and light pollution are interfering with observations.
From all over Lebanon
It is planned that near the observatory building there will be a hotel complex, which has already come up with a name - "Space House". Astronomers from all over the country will be able to stay there. And there are more and more of them in Lebanon every year. There are even courses for astronomers, night trips to the mountains to observe the celestial lights. One of them was attended by as many as 250 people. Muhammad Abbas, a professor of astronomy, lectures at the courses.
Where does such a craving come from?
A special passion for astronomy in Lebanon has been evident since 2013. Then the first campaign to observe the eclipses of the sun was organized. The country began to sell more telescopes. So, if earlier Beirut company Sky Optics sold on 30-40 telescopes, last years - on 600-700.It has even reached the point where the International Astronomical Union has allowed Lebanese stars to name a star without a name and an exoplanet outside our solar system.
Only five observatories in the world are located above the center in Becerra
At an altitude greater than that of the new Lebanese Astronomical Centre, there are only five observatories in the world today. They are located in Switzerland, Ethiopia, India, Chile, and Hawaii.
The largest spherical radio telescope
While an observatory is being built in Lebanon, astronomers in China have caught space signals, the origin of which is unknown. Received signals on a spherical radio telescope. This is the largest spherical radio telescope in the world. With a 500-meter aperture. Aperture - the ability of the device to collect light, the more aperture, the less washed out the image. It is located in the Chinese province of Guizhou in the mountainous area. It is known in the world as the FAST telescope.
From a source at a distance of 3 billion light-years
Mysterious signals in the form of repeated fast radio bursts came from a source that scientists assumed was 3 billion light-years away from Earth. Fast radio bursts are radio pulses that last milliseconds, not even seconds.
The nature of radio pulses cannot yet be explained
Unfortunately, scientists cannot yet explain the origin of radio impulses. Sometimes they can't even understand where the signal came from. Because tracking fast radio bursts is a very difficult task because they last for several thousandths of a second. If the spike does not happen again, it is almost impossible to identify the area of the sky from which the signal came. Because this time the scientists were able to establish the place where the signal came from, will help in further observations of the starry sky.