An international team of astronomers has extended the reach of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Breakthrough Listen project, thanks to data from the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT.)
Frank Drake, one of the first scientists to come to Green Bank and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, died at his home in Aptos, California on September 2.
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The Green Bank Telescope weighs in at 17 million pounds, making it one of the largest movable manmade structures on Earth. Photo credit Jay Young.
The National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is one of the world’s largest moving structures. Sixteen wheels carry 17 million pounds on a steel track atop a concrete foundation, allowing it to rotate to pinpoint planets, stars, asteroids, and other astronomical phenomena across the Universe. A new award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will ensure it continues operating smoothly.
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In April 2017, as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration prepared to point the world’s most powerful radio telescopes at the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, the team calibrated its instruments by observing another cosmic target. Located about 3.7 billion light-years away, J1924–2914 is a blazar: an active black hole that ejects a jet of particles and radiation toward Earth.
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The special hunts have been scheduled for Oct. 28-29 and Nov. 3-4, coordinated by the Observatory and WVDNR.
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