West Virginia Students Use One of World’s Largest Telescopes

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Governor’s STEM Institute brings nearly sixty rising 9th graders to Green Bank Observatory

This July 2022, nearly 60 students gathered in Green Bank, West Virginia, for the Governor’s STEM Institute (GSI.) These rising 9th graders competitively applied for this opportunity to experience science, technology, engineering, and mathematics through exciting hands-on experiences. 

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Radio “heartbeat” teases Fast Radio Burst origins

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A recent article in Sky and Telescope shared the latest observations of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope, located in British Columbia.

CHIME is constructing a smaller version its main telescope at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO). This new outrigger will work in tandem with other CHIME instruments to better locate the position of FRBs by triangulating their signals, similar to the way cell phone GPS works.

The new CHIME instrument under construction at the Green Bank Observatory. Credit NSF/GBO/Jill Malusky.
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Eavesdropping on interstellar communications with the Green Bank Telescope

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Photo of the Green Bank Telescope at night by Dave Green.

Communications across the vastness of interstellar space could be enhanced by taking advantage of a star’s ability to focus and magnify communication signals. A team of graduate students at Penn State is looking for just these sorts of communication signals that might be taking advantage of our own sun if transmissions were passing through our solar system.

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