The funding for NRAO comes from the National Science Foundation, which is funded by the federal government. When an appropriations bill was not passed, NSF did not get any money, so they could not give any money to NRAO to continue operating. The National Science Foundation could not authorize NRAO to continue operating without funding. So, in short, this isn't being done to save money, it's being done because there is no money.

The article also washes over the fact that there are different telescopes for different parts of the radio spectrum. The MWA and LOFAR are the most powerful in the MHz regime, but the VLA is still the most powerful between 1 to 50 GHz, and ALMA is the most powerful from 85 and 700 GHz.

This is a huge error in the Wired article "The telescopes searched for alpha particles emitted by Hydrogen atoms (commonly found in star formation, appearing as a bright red light)." An alpha particle is the nucleus of a Helium atom, so if hydrogen could emit that it would be an incredible feat! However, they really mean H-alpha line emission, a bright emission line that comes from the recombination of a proton and electron and it can be measured out to high redshifts.

They aren't observing fusion since that process takes place deep inside the stars.

While there have been other telescopes that observed in the infrared, JWST will have a mirror 6x larger than the prevous space-based telescopes that operate or have operated at the same wavelengths (0.8 to 24 microns). This means that JWST will have a factor of 6 better resolution than previous telescopes and be incredibly more sensitive due to the larger collecting area. Ground-based telescopes cannot compete with JWST because of the sky brightness in the infrared making sensitive observations very time consuming. The science drivers of JWST are primarily the high-redshift universe, that is galaxies that were formed shortly after the big bang. This is something Hubble cannot do since it is not infrared optimized (the telescope is quite warm compare to JWST's operating temperature) and has too small of an aperture for the resolution needed.

The lack of future Hubble servicing has a lot to do with the retirement of the Space Shuttles, the only platform that can be used to service HST. Hubble will be kept going as long as possible since it is still doing outstanding science. In the 2020s it is hoped to launch an 8m class optical-uv telescope to truly replace Hubble.

The target will not be observed with the array of four telescopes, rather just one of the telescopes will do the observation. Taking data simultaneously with all four telescopes is a tricky procedure and yields data, while extremely useful scienfically, it's very different from the pretty pictures that this contest is after.

Picky picky, do you have anything intelligent to add or are you just going to argue semantics rather than acknowledge good science?

This is actually a very important discovery, the circumstellar disk surrounding the young star has been found to have a deficit of emission ~55 AU in radius. The cause of holes or gaps in proto-planetary disks has been a matter of intense debate in recent years, some people favor planets clearing gaps, others favor emission from the star causing the disk to evaporate. This seems to be clear evidence that planets are actually doing the gap opening and play a key role in the dissipation of disks around stars.

Not all of American's jets have in-seat entertainment. The entire 767 fleet does not have in-seat entertainment, merely the overhead screens. The 777 fleet does have the in-seat screens, but perhaps you would get different options, and your laptop screen is probably nicer to watch something off of than the small ones in the seat.

As for American being a terrible airline, I have to disagree with you. Perhaps they're not a nice as some of the international carriers due to the cut-throat market in the US, but I have been quite happy with my experiences flying them for domestic and international purposes.

The VLA is not being closed, it has been substantially upgraded and is now known as the EVLA, E for expanded. The array being constructed in Chile ALMA the Atacama Large Millimeter Array operates at higher frequencies 88GHz to ~700 GHz whereas the EVLA operates between 74MHz and 50 GHz. They are complementary facilities, in addition, ALMA is a multinational project, Europe, Japan, and the US. Arecibo has been under discussion for closure for many years; however, to restore the site to its natural state (as required by contract) would cost much more than keeping it running.

Science is popular; however, progress comes slowly these days and a lot must go on behind the scenes before something of broad interest comes out. The new facilities like the EVLA, ALMA, and the Large Hadron Collider are able to make ground breaking discoveries that are difficult to achieve with more limited instrumentation.

I missed a point here, you seemed to be implying using these for optical interferometry. However, we cannot currently digitize an optical signal and current optical interferometers use analog methods to create interference fringes. At radio wavelengths we can simply downconvert the signal so something more manageable and then calculate the antenna-antenna the interference.

You still have to contend with the diffraction limit though, 100% efficiency be damned if you can't resolve anything. Also, CCDs are not as ineffecient as you are purporting them to be; they are as efficient as ~90% at some wavelengths (http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/MDM/MDM4K/qe.jpg); therefore, getting 100% effeciency is not going to increase your signal as significantly as you seem to think.

The site's dead Jim.

The US census did use GPS to pinpoint the exact locations of households. So Brazil can't do that much better....