Radio astronomy

Updated October 31, 2009

Some of this information about radio telescopes comes from an engineer at the Natonal Radio Astronomy Observatory. Radio astronomy is yet another cool use of the microwave frequency spectrum!

In 1952 radio astromomy was born, thanks to the efforts of two Harvard researchers, Harold Irving Ewen and Edward Mills Purcell. Check out their entry in the Microwave Hall of Fame!

Here is a link to a spectacular collapse of the Greenbank 300 ft telescope (antenna), 1988:

http://www.gb.nrao.edu/fgdocs/300ft/300ft.html

This engineering disaster certainly ranks up there with the Tacoma bridge!

Here is a link to radio astronomy references with many links to other radio astronomy websites: http://www.101science.com/rastronomy.htm

Every specialty has its own "bible". In radio astronomy it's "nterferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy by A. Richard Thompson, James M. Moran, and George W. Swenson.

The website for the NRAO is www.nrao.edu and for the new international Atacama (a desert in Chile) Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is http://www.alma.nrao.edu. ALMA will work up to 950 GHz!

Currently the hot topics in radio astronomy are: "Stellar Nurseries" and "The Epoch of Re-ionization" (occurred "shortly" after the big bang). Please don't bother sending complaints to this web site if you are a "creationist", here's the response you'll get: just because you believe it, doesn't make it so.

Another interesting thing. All the planets in the solar system are in the near-field of the Very Large Array (VLA).

We need to dispell one myth about radio astronomy. This worthy topic has really nothing to do with SETI. Mentioning this organization prominently on the same page as radio astronomy will probably annoy the astronomers so much that they'll never return. Occasionally, those-that-shall-not-be-named have scheduled time to use radio astronomy equipment or sites, like Arecibo. But for the most part the confusion between radio astronomy and those-that-shall-not-be-named annoys the heck out of radio astronomers. It's comparable the assumption that microwave engineers would like to repair their neighbor's broken ovens, a misconception we battle all the time.

More to come!