A revolutionary new radio telescope called LOFAR will consist of 20,000 antennas spread over 400 kilometers to detect long-wavelength radio signals (up to 30 meters).

It will be connected to a 27.4 teraflops supercomputer via 22 terabits/sec fiber optics to model and compensate for ionospheric path distortions (“twinkling”) in real time.

A main objective is to discover the end of the so-called cosmic dark age — a few hundred million years after the big bang. Astronomers want to find out what lit up first: stars, or more exotic objects called quasars?

LOFAR will also watch the formation of galaxies, map out the magnetic field of our galaxy and its neighbors, and detect high-energy particles hitting our atmosphere. The source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays remains a mystery, but LOFAR should be able to trace a cosmic ray’s radio trail back to the particle’s origin.