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radio telescope

A telescope in the scrublands

The uncertainty of investments in infrastructure and negotiation difficulties in Uruguay are preventing the possibility of building the Bingo radio telescope in that country as initially planned. Bingo, an international project led by physicists from São Paulo, will examine the effects of the interaction between hydrogen and electromagnetic radiation (see Pesquisa FAPESP No. 252). In early September 2017, at the annual meeting of the Brazilian Astronomy Society, physicist Carlos Alexandre Wuensche, a researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and one of the project coordinators, announced that the telescope should be built in a valley of the Urubu Mountains, in the municipality of Aguiar, in the western part of Paraíba State. According to Wuensche, the site was chosen together with researchers from the Federal University of Campina Grande, and the R$12 million that was obtained through FAPESP funding will cover most of the project’s costs. Researchers and institutions in Brazil, Uruguay, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and China are participating in the project. Measurements indicated that there is virtually no interference in the Urubu Mountains and that it is a good location to host Bingo.

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