Four years after the National Science Foundation announced it would drop funding for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank effective Oct. 1, 2016, the Pocahontas County research center remains alive and well, and as of last week, proudly independent.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory sign at the entrance to the 60-year-old research center along W.Va. 28 has been replaced with a sign bearing the new green and purple logo of the Green Bank Observatory. Last Saturday, former and current employees of the observatory, including Dr. Frank Drake, who conducted the world’s first scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence at Green Bank in 1960, took part in a dedication ceremony for the newly independent observatory. Read more from the Charleston Gazette-Mail article here.
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Other articles are available here.
A few pictures from the inauguration are below, and a link to more will be made available soon.
ABC News10: Town full of people lives without cellphones, Wi-Fi to get signals from space
No cell phones, no Wi-Fi… not even a radio station. And that’s just how one town in West Virginia wants it.
The town of Green Bank doesn’t use personal technology because it’s listening to something else. It’s in the middle of the national radio quiet zone, home to the World’s largest movable radio telescope.
The telescope is trying to pick up faint signals from outer space, but that means people in this small town can’t have some modern conveniences.
“For the people in the immediate area of the telescope we need the quiet,” said Jay Lockman, National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The town does have landlines and payphones, but microwave ovens have to be in protective steel boxes.
When a dollar general opened the automatic doors had to be removed because it was interfering with the telescope
Aired on ABC News10. See more on their website.
CBS Pittsburgh: No Cell Phones, Wi-Fi Allowed In Small W.Va. Town
Would you believe there’s a place where no one can use a cell phone? Where Wi-Fi is not allowed? Where even finding a radio station can be a difficult task?
There’s a town in West Virginia a few hours to south of Pittsburgh where all that is true.
Green Bank is a place where you can hear nature. Where you can hear yourself think. And that’s because some very important listening is going on.
You see, Green Bank is home to the largest moveable radio telescope in the world.
“For people in the immediate area of the telescope, we really need the quiet,” said Jay Lockman from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
They’re trying to pick up very faint signals from outer space, so people in this small town can’t have some of today’s modern conveniences.
Aired on CBS Pittsburgh. See more on CBS Pittsburgh.
01/05/2016: Physics Professor Using 3-D Map of the Milky Way to Determine Its Star Formation Rate
Radio telescopes have provided scientists with incredible information about our own galaxy, as well as those around us. While researchers understand a great deal of galaxies far away, gaps remain in the knowledge about our own, the Milky Way – specifically, how global star formation works in our own backyard, and how many stars our galaxy is making per year.
“We have that information about other galaxies, just not our own,” said Loren Anderson, assistant professor of physics at West Virginia University.
“We’re stuck inside of our galaxy, so it’s difficult to get a three-dimensional view of it, like we can others,” he said.
Anderson has been awarded $363,734 by the National Science Foundation to create a three-dimensional map that will shed light on star formation in our galaxy.
Published by Newswise. See more at: http://newswise.com/articles/physics-professor-using-3-d-map-of-the-milky-way-to-determine-its-star-formation-rate
Pasadena News Now: Local High School Students Hunt for Pulsars
Hanaa is hunting for a blip in a vast set of data.
Although she is only a high school student, she is searching for the signal of a pulsar — a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation like a lighthouse.
Hanaa and 19 of her fellow students at Alverno Heights Academy in Sierra Madre are participating in the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC), a program that partners high school students with astronomy mentors at local universities. The mentors then train the students how to search a large data set for the signals of pulsars. The PSC, headquartered at the University of West Virginia, was established in 2007 through a grant from the National Science Foundation. As part of the grant, 300 terabytes of data collected by the West Virginia’s Green Bank Telescope were set aside for high school students to use to search for pulsars.
Published by Pasadena News Now. See more on their website