Astronomers Pinpoint World’s Best Stargazing Site

Ever wonder where in the world humans have the absolute best view of all the stars in the sky? Astronomers say they’ve found it – the coldest, driest, calmest place on earth, which is expected to yield images three times sharper than any ever taken from the ground.

A research team used data from satellites, ground stations and climate models to determine the factors that can affect astronomy, like cloud cover, sky brightness, water vapor and wind speeds.

From Science Daily:

The researchers pinpointed a site, known simply as Ridge A, that is 4,053m high up on the Antarctic Plateau. It is not only particularly remote but extremely cold and dry. The study revealed that Ridge A has an average winter temperature of minus 70ºC and that the water content of the entire atmosphere there is sometimes less than the thickness of a human hair.

It is also extremely calm, which means that there is very little of the atmospheric turbulence elsewhere that makes stars appear to twinkle: “It’s so calm that there’s almost no wind or weather there at all,” says Dr Will Saunders, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory and visiting professor to UNSW, who led the study.

“The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers,” says Dr Saunders. “Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth.”

It doesn’t look like much – just a wide swath of frigid, snow-covered land – but putting an observatory here could provide some stunning images. And, there’s nothing like a really clear view of the stars to make you appreciate the vastness of the universe.

Link [Science Daily]
Photo credit: Flickr user Coda

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