A telescope technician touches up a weld on one of the Green Bank Telescope’s four trucks that drive the 17-million pound telescope in a circle. Each truck has four wheels, meaning each wheel supports one million pounds. The GBT’s track goes 25 feet into the ground to remain sturdy and level. Metal covers in between the trucks protect the track from snow and dirt.
Building the GBT’s Azimuth Track
The Green Bank Telescope was constructed in the 1990s, beginning with its huge circular track and support. In this photo, an engineer is standing on one of the GBT’s four trucks that would eventually drive the 17-million pound telescope in a circle. Each truck has four wheels, meaning each wheel supports one million pounds. The track goes 25 feet into the ground to remain sturdy and level.
Karl Guthe Jansky
Karl Guthe Jansky was born in Norman, Oklahoma on October 22, 1905 and graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin. He joined the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey in 1928. While hunting for radio static for Bell Labs, Jansky made the surprise discovery of radio waves coming from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Jansky wanted to investigate the radio waves from the Milky Way Galaxy in more detail. He proposed to Bell Labs to build a 100 foot (30 meter) diameter dish antenna. But Bell Labs had the answer they wanted about static: the static was not a problem for transatlantic radio communication. Jansky was assigned to another project and did no more radio astronomy. He died on February 14, 1950.
Karl Jansky with his Milky Way Map
Karl Guthe Jansky joined the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey in 1928. While hunting for radio static for Bell Labs, Jansky made the surprise discovery of radio waves coming from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. In this photo, he is standing under a rough map of the night sky and pointing to the constellation of Cassiopeia. The wavy lines track the radio emissions he discovered on the chart paper, which also line up with the disk of our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
Karl Jansky and his Merry-go-Round
Karl Guthe Jansky is known as the father of radio astronomy, because in 1933 he discovered that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy emits radio waves. He was not an astronomer, however. He was a young engineer with Bell Laboratories tasked with identifying sources of static for their overseas radio communications. He built this rotating antenna to get all-sky coverage at their chosen frequency of 20.5 MHz (wavelength about 14.5 meters), and it quickly got the nickname of “Jansky’s Merry-go-round.” With it, he picked up thunderstorms and a strange hiss that moved throughout the day. He eventually figured out that it was coming from the direction of Sagittarius, behind which lies the heart of our Galaxy.
Portrait of Karl Jansky
Karl Guthe Jansky was born in Norman, Oklahoma on October 22, 1905 and graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin. He joined the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey in 1928. While hunting for radio static for Bell Labs, Jansky made the surprise discovery of radio waves coming from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Jansky wanted to investigate the radio waves from the Milky Way Galaxy in more detail. He proposed to Bell Labs to build a 100 foot (30 meter) diameter dish antenna. But Bell Labs had the answer they wanted about static: the static was not a problem for transatlantic radio communication. Jansky was assigned to another project and did no more radio astronomy. He died on February 14, 1950.