NANOGrav’s most recent dataset offers compelling evidence for gravitational waves with oscillations of years to decades. These waves are thought to arise from orbiting pairs of the most massive black holes throughout the Universe: billions of times more massive than the Sun, with sizes larger than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

New scientific results from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the Very Large Array (VLA), and the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) will be revealed at multiple press conferences during the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) from June 5-7, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Scientists studying the supermassive black hole at the heart of the M87 galaxy have revealed the origins of the monster’s powerful jet and imaged the jet and its source together for the first time. What’s more, the observations have revealed that the black hole’s ring is much larger than scientists previously believed.

The formation of massive stars and planets. The deaths of stars and galaxies. The extreme and violent behaviors of black hole jets and quasars. An up-close and personal radar view of the Moon. These mysteries and more were unraveled in 2021 by radio astronomers leveraging the scientific and technological power of National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) facilities.

Astronomers study the universe by capturing light from the sky, but they can also learn thing by sending radio light into space.

NRAO, Green Bank Telescope, and Raytheon Intelligence & Space (RI&S) are working in collaboration to improve planetary radar capabilities. With the addition of Qorvo’s Spatium power amplifier technology, the project now has the power to identify and characterize even small NEOs earlier with more precision.

Collaboration between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the Green Bank Observatory, and Raytheon Intelligence & Space turns the Green Bank Telescope and the Very Long Baseline Array into a radar system for studying the Solar System.

Astronomers using the GBT have discovered the most massive neutron star to date, a rapidly spinning pulsar approximately 4,600 light-years from Earth. This record-breaking object is teetering on the edge of existence, approaching the theoretical maximum mass possible for a neutron star.

Radio telescope observations have made it possible for astronomers to use mergers of neutron-star pairs as a valuable new tool for measuring the Universe’s expansion.

Harnessing the exquisite sensitivity of the GBT, astronomers have given one of Einstein’s predictions on gravity its most stringent test yet. By precisely tracking the meanderings of three stars in a single system – two white dwarf stars and one ultra-dense neutron star – the researchers determined that even the most massive of objects “fall” in the same manner as their less-dense counterparts.