Radio Telescopes

Greg Arabia

TED 111

Dr. Kallis

What do radio telescopes do?

Track and collect data from satellites

Monitor radio signals from outer space

Detect weather, other planets, stars, and other astronomical objects

What can a small radio telescope do?

Detect stronger radio sources Look for high energy pulses Detect meteors Mapping

What is a radio telescope?

Very sensitive radio receiver

Measures the intensity of radio waves

Shoots a small beam to detect the signals

Image source (http://dvice.com/pics/VLA_telescope.jpg)

How are they made?

A parabolic shaped dish An antenna mounted on top of the dish An amplifier is used gain a stronger signal All the information is sent to a computer

Basic radio telescope

The dish reflects radio waves to the antenna

The antenna sends the signal to the amplifier

The information is recorded onto a computer

How do they work?

Uses a parabolic shaped dish that reflects radio waves to an antenna

The signal is sent to an amplifier to magnify the signal

The signal is processed by a computer to turn the signal into a picture

Radio telescopes vs. Optical telescopes

Radio telescopes are much larger due to wavelength size

Radio telescopes use lower energy than optical telescopes

Both use parabolic shaped dishes

The first radio telescope

Built by Karl Jansky Made on accident in

1931 He recorded

thunderstorms and categorized them in different categories

Image source (http://www.nrao.edu/jansky/jansky4_small.jpg)

Types of radio telescopes

There are many different sizes and designs of radio telescopes

A few different kinds are– Haystack radio telescope– Westford radio telescope– Arecibo radio telescope

Haystack radio telescope

Controlled by remote Used mainly for

education and space tracking

Usually smaller telescopes

Image source (http://www.haystack.mit.edu/edu/undergrad/srt/antenna/srtdecember.jpg)

Westford radio telescope

Dome shaped telescope

Made in 1961 Used in

communications technology

Image source:

http://www.haystack.mit.edu/obs/westford/pics/Westfordatnight.gif

The biggest radio telescope

Located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico

1,001 foot dish Has a remote antenna

Image source:

http://aboutfacts.net/Astronomy/Astronomy6/arecibo_naic_big.jpg

What does a radio telescope listen to?

If listened to a radio telescope all you would hear is static

Scientist listen for man made signals

Discoveries

Discovered that the sun and the center of the Milky way galaxy have strong radio waves

There are strong radio waves coming from black places in the galaxy

They helped discover the black places were exploded stars

Work Cited

Strobel, N. (2007, June 1). Radio telescopes. Retrieved from http://www.astronomynotes.com/telescop/s4.htm (Slides 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and picture on slide 6)

How Radio telescopes work. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy/radiotelescopes (slides 10, 11, 12, and picture on slide 2)

Schloerb, A. (n.d.). The Radio telescope. Retrieved from http://www.astro.umass.edu/~fcrao/education/report1.html (slides 8, 9, 13)

Frequently asked questions about radio astronomy. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.radiosky.com/faq.html (slide 14, 15)