Attacker Damages Radio Telescope Site on Mauna Kea

VLBA station on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i.
Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

A lone attacker drove a vehicle onto the Mauna Kea station of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) Tuesday, damaging the installation’s fence, building, and official vehicles. The attacker was apprehended by law-enforcement officers. The station’s two employees were uninjured.

Initial reports indicate that the radio-telescope antenna is undamaged. Site personnel are assessing the damage to the building.

The VLBA is a continent-wide radio telescope system, with ten, 25-meter-diameter dish antennas. The Mauna Kea antenna is the westernmost, with one at St. Croix in the Caribbean, and eight on the U.S. mainland. The VLBA is operated from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Science Operations Center in Socorro, New Mexico.

The VLBA is used by astronomers around the world to make high-resolution images of celestial objects, and has made landmark contributions to our understanding of the Universe.

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

Contact:  Dave Finley, Public Information Officer
(575) 835-7302
dfinley@nrao.edu

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Images & Videos

More News From The Very Long Baseline Array

Astronomy based on Earth—and Space—Will Give Astronomers More Powerful Tools
October 16, 2024

Scientists and engineers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) and Lonestar Data Holdings…
Precision Measurements Offer Clues to Magnetar’s Cosmic Origin
August 6, 2024

An international team of astronomers have used a powerful array of radio telescopes to discover new insights about a magnetar that’s only a few hundred years old. By capturing precise measurements of the magnetar’s position and velocity, new clues emerge regarding its developmental path.

Spotted: ‘Death Star’ Black Holes in Action
May 22, 2024

Huge black holes are firing powerful beams of particles into space — and then changing their aim to fire at new targets.

Radio Observations of Compact Symmetric Objects Shed New Light on Black Hole Phenomenon
March 26, 2024

Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) have long puzzled astronomers with their unique characteristics. These active galaxies harbor supermassive black holes that emit powerful jets traveling at near-light speeds in opposite directions. However, unlike their counterparts in other galaxies, these jets remain compact, not extending out to great distances as expected. For decades, scientists presumed that CSOs were youthful entities, with their jets destined to expand over time. New findings, published in three papers in The Astrophysical Journal, challenge this notion.

More News Related to Radio Telescopes

NRAO and SpaceX Coordinate to Protect Radio Astronomy 
March 18, 2024

NRAO and SpaceX have engaged in coordinated experiments involving NRAO telescopes and the Starlink satellite constellation for over two years. Early experiments began in late 2021 with the deployment of working Starlink user terminals near the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico and have continued to the present day. These experiments highlight the ways in which satellite constellations and radio telescopes might be able to coexist, provided there is mutual awareness of what the other is doing.
Astronomers & Engineers Use a Grid of Computers at a National Scale to Study the Universe 300 Times Faster
March 5, 2024

Looking for a more efficient way to process a particularly large VLA data set, to produce one of the deepest radio images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), made famous by the Hubble Telescope, NRAO staff decided to try a different approach.
German Astronomers Share Proposed Science for the ngVLA
February 21, 2024

Over the course of two scientific meetings, held in 2022 and 2023, German astronomers have collected 41 highly compelling science cases involving 57 unique authors from 19 German institutions, all aspiring to use the ngVLA.
Can Astronomers Use Radar to Spot a Cataclysmic Asteroid?
February 16, 2024

How can humans protect the Earth from “devastating asteroid and comet impacts?” According to the National Academies and their…