LIFE IS POSSIBLE BEYOND OUR PLANET

Sugars and other pre-biotic molecules in interstellar space have been found, meaning that life is possible beyond Earth.

The trailblazers of American radio astronomy called Green Bank Observatory home over 60 years ago. Today, their legacy is alive and well. Nestled in the mountain ranges and farmland of West Virginia, within the National Quiet Zone, radio astronomers are listening to the remote whispers of the universe, in order to discover answers to our most astounding astronomical questions.

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From pulsars to black holes to searching for aliens, our GBT Science programs range from comets to cosmology.

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IN THE NEWS

GBT Investigates mysterious source of cosmic radio bursts

This discovery may help shed light on what is causing these strange bursts.

IN THE NEWS

GBT detects largest molecule ever seen by radio astronomy

This 6-atom, aromatic, ringed molecule provides a vital clue in identifying the source of a faint infrared glow permeating the Milky Way.

 

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Its huge collecting area allows us to see these incredibly small energies that we're trying to study. The types of energies we look at are less than the energy of a single snowflake falling on the earth.

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Karen O'Neil, GBO Director