Inside the Bearing Room

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Inside the Bearing Room

The ball bearing of the 140-foot telescope

The giant, shiny metal ball is the 17.5-foot hemispherical heart of the 140-foot telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia. It supports the telescope’s full rotating weight of 2700 tons on a .005-inch thick oil film (see pumps in foreground) between it and the main hydrostatic pad supports (black). The bearing is bolted to the end of the polar shaft. The shaft slowly spins against the turning of the Earth to allow the 43-meter dish telescope to keep itself aimed on a particular object in space.

Credit: B. Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
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