AARNet in international demonstration of ultra high-speed research network

By Stan Beer
Wednesday, 14 January 2009 09:27

Networking

AARNet, Australia's National Research and Education Network, will connect Australian and international researchers from 13 countries through an ultra high-speed network for an international astronomy demonstration tomorrow. The demonstration, taking place over 33 hours at an opening ceremony for the International Year of Astronomy in Paris, France, will involve data transfer more than 1000 times faster than ADSL2+.

The demonstration will use a technology called e-VLBI (electronic Very Long Baseline Interferometry). The technique involves widely separated radio telescopes observing the same region of sky simultaneously and data from each telescope is sampled and sent to a central processor via high speed communication networks operating in real-time.

Researchers will conduct an e-VLBI observation linking 17 radio telescopes across the world where researchers track three extra-galactic objects as they rise and set with the rotation of the earth.  This demonstration is designed to showcase the widespread scope and capability of e-VLBI technology in facilitating scientific discoveries.

Chris Hancock, CEO of AARNet said, "AARNet is an enabler of innovation and AARNet's involvement in this demonstration highlights the importance of investing in a high-speed network as it will improve the skills and capabilities of researchers by allowing them to effectively participate in Australia's Digital Economy and the digital education revolution."

The data will be captured by three telescopes in Australia; Mount Pleasant in Hobart, CSIRO's  Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) near Narrabri and Mopra  near Coonabarabran, NSW, with telescopes from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Finland, Sweden, China, Chile, Poland and the Netherlands.

Data from the three Australian telescopes will be transferred over the AARNet3 network to the correlator at JIVE in the Netherlands using SXTransport, CENIC, CANARIE and SURFNet6. The data will be processed in real-time with the results streaming live at the opening ceremony in Paris.

Tasso Tzioumis, Research Scientist at the CSIRO said, "For e-VLBI observations, Australia's distance from the global scientific community is both extremely important and extremely challenging.

"By using widely separated points of observation, e-VLBI technology can generate images of cosmic radio sources with up to one hundred times better resolution than images from the best optical telescopes. Australia is a key partner in e-VLBI observations as our distance from other points of observation allows for a clearer and more detailed image.

"Crucially, AARNet allows Australian researchers to collaborate with the international research community. Without the high speed network provided by AARNet, we would not be able to transmit the data needed to produce significant research findings."

Hancock added, "AARNet has been a strong supporter of e-VLBI since its beginnings, working with the Australia Telescope National Facility for e-VLBI projects to provide the technology and capability needed for Australia to participate in global research collaborations. The network infrastructure used by researchers for these experiments is over 1000 times faster than what is typically available for Australian ADSL2+ broadband users."