Radio telescopes are like giant satellite dishes that pick up invisible radio waves and similar waves, instead of light rays. Unlike light, radio waves can travel through cloud, so radio telescopes can be built just about anywhere! An American called Grote Reber made the first one in the 1930s.
Amazing! A telescope can be 8,000 km long. The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) stretches across the USA. It has ten different dishes and produces the best-quality radio images of space from Earth yet!
Which are the most powerful radio telescopes?
The ones that are made up of several different radio dishes, such as the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, USA. The VLA has 27 dishes, each 25 metres across. Scientists compare the findings from all 27 dishes to get super-accurate results.
Where is the biggest radio telescope?
The world’s biggest single-dish radio telescope was built in Puerto Rico in the Caribbean about 40 years ago. It is 300 metres across – so it would take you more than ten minutes to walk around the edge of it.
Is it true? Only ten astronomers are allowed to use the VLA.
No. It is used by over 500 astronomers a year. Some study our near-neighbours in the Solar System, while others peer way beyond our galaxy to others in deepest space.
Picture Credit : Google