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Credit: NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY

The first images obtained using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) with a Japanese radioastronomy satellite were released last week. The image of the quasar 1156+295 (right) is therefore one of the first images to have been produced using a radiotelescope in space.

Researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico, combined signals from the Japanese HALCA satellite and from ground-based stations in the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and Very Large Array (VLA). The VLBA has 10 antennas and a maximum separation of 20 miles, and the VLA has 27 antennas and a maximum separation of 5,000 miles.

HALCA, launched in February by Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, is the first satellite designed for radio-astronomy imaging. This image shows the quasar's core, bottom right, and a jet of subatomic particles emerging from the core towards the top left.