The science case and challenges of spaceborne sub-millimeter interferometry: the study case of TeraHertz Exploration and Zooming-in for Astrophysics (THEZA)

Ultra-high angular resolution in astronomy has always been an important vehicle for making fundamental discoveries. Recent results in direct imaging of the vicinity of the super-massive black hole in the nucleus of the radio galaxy M87 by the millimeter VLBI system Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and various pioneering results of the Space VLBI...

Image formation for future radio telescopes

Fundamental scientific questions such as how the first stars were formed or how the universe came into existence and evolved to its present state drive us to observe weak radio signals impinging on the earth from the early days of the universe. During the last century, radio astronomy has been vastly advancing. Important discoveries on the...

Orbit design of a swarm for ultra-long wavelength radio interferometry with preliminary swarm and thruster sizing

Observing the universe in the Ultra-Long Wavelength (ULW) regime has been called the ‘last frontier in astronomy’—real imaging capabilities here are yet to be achieved. Obtaining an image of the sky in this frequency band can be done by employing a swarm of satellites that together act as an interferometer and collect the required imaging...

THEZA: TeraHertz Exploration and Zooming-in for Astrophysics: TeraHertz Exploration and Zooming-in for Astrophysics: An ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper

This paper presents the ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper for a concept of TeraHertz Exploration and Zooming-in for Astrophysics (THEZA). It addresses the science case and some implementation issues of a space-borne radio interferometric system for ultra-sharp imaging of celestial radio sources at the level of angular resolution down to (sub-)...

The science case and challenges of space-borne sub-millimeter interferometry

Ultra-high angular resolution in astronomy has always been an important vehicle for making fundamental discoveries. Recent results in direct imaging of the vicinity of the supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the radio galaxy M87 by the millimeter VLBI system Event Horizon Telescope and various pioneering results of the Space VLBI...

Orbital configurations of spaceborne interferometers for studying photon rings of supermassive black holes

Recent advances in technology coupled with the progress of observational radio astronomy methods resulted in achieving a major milestone of astrophysics - a direct image of the shadow of a supermassive black hole, taken by the Earth-based Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The EHT was able to achieve a resolution of ∼20μas, enabling it to resolve...

Optimal Sensor Placement for Calibration-Involved Radio Astronomy Imaging Applications

In radio astronomy (RA), one of the key tasks is the estimation of the celestial source powers, i.e. imaging. To maximize the performance, it is crucial to optimize the receiver locations before the construction of a telescope array. However, although system calibration is an integral and crucial process of imaging, it has rarely been addressed...

Numerical optimisation of constellation and orbit design for the OLFAR radio interferometry swarm in orbit of the Earth-Moon L4 point

In the field of radio astronomy the Ultra-Long Wavelength (f < 30MHz) band is unique, it has been studied for nearly a century yet it is still almost completely uncharted. Due to the reflective properties of Earth's ionosphere this band is nearly completely inaccessible for ground-based observatories, which can only receive frequencies down...