Category: Press Releases

  • The Green Bank Telescope Discovering Interstellar Organic Molecules

    Summary: Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope have made the first definitive interstellar detection of benzonitrile, an intriguing organic molecule that helps to chemically link simple carbon-based molecules and truly massive ones known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This discovery is a vital clue in a 30-year-old mystery: identifying the source of a faint infrared glow…


  • Swarm of Hydrogen Clouds Flying Away from Center of our Galaxy

    A team of astronomers has discovered what appears to be a grand exodus of more than 100 hydrogen clouds streaming away from the center of the Milky Way and heading into intergalactic space.


  • Astronomers peer into the lair of a mysterious source of cosmic radio bursts

    Artist concept of fast radio burst. Image Credit: Design: Danielle Futselaar; photo usage: shutterstock.com Green Bank, January 10, 2018 – Using two of the world’s largest radio telescopes, an international team of astronomers have gained new insight into the extreme home of a mysterious source of cosmic radio bursts.  The discovery suggests that the source…


  • Pulsar Jackpot Reveals Globular Cluster’s Inner Structure

    The Milky Way is chock-full of star clusters. Some contain just a few tens-to-hundreds of young stars. Others, known as globular clusters, are among the oldest objects in the Universe and contain up to a million ancient stars. Some globular clusters are thought to be fragments of our galaxy, chiseled off when the Milky Way…


  • Image Release: New Radar Map Reveals the Moon’s Hidden Geology

    As the public prepares for the upcoming eclipse, astronomers have released a striking new radar view of the Moon. Researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum are using radio telescopes at the Arecibo Observatory and Green Bank Observatory to map the Moon with radar. The radar signals, transmitted from the Arecibo telescope and…


  • GBT Captures Orion Blazing Bright in Radio Light

    A team of astronomers has unveiled a striking new image of the Orion Molecular Cloud (OMC) – a bustling stellar nursery teeming with bright, young stars and dazzling regions of hot, glowing gas. The researchers used the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a 50 light-year long filament…


  • Green Bank Telescope Aids in Finding Lost Spacecraft

    Finding a tiny lost space-craft at a distance of 270,000 miles away may seem impossible, but NASA scientists have done just that. Using a new radar technique, they have located India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft which has been lost since August 2009, the last time any communication was received from it. Chandrayaan-1, India’s first mission to the…


  • 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…