Printables


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Career Focus Posters

Engineer Manager

Karen
Observatory director

Director

Dennis
Mechanical Engineer

Engineer

Observatory Posters

Life is possible beyond our planet.
The first radio astronomy search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) took place in Green Bank… and continues today. Green Bank Observatory searches for intelligent life, as well as the origins of life on Earth. Did comets start life on Earth by bringing DNA here? Is DNA created in the cold, outer regions of or solar system? These are some of the questions the Green Bank Telescope is trying to answer.
GreenBankObservatory.org

Life is Possible

We are all made of stars.
Without stars, we wouldn't be here. Stars produce basic elements, like carbon, that are the foundation of complex molecules that make up life. It is likely that all elements-- everything we see, hear, and touch-- are created during a star's life cycle. The Green Bank Telescope taught astronomers that the Milky Way is an organic galaxy, dominated by carbon-based molecules.
GreenBankObservatory.org

Made of Stars

We make time travel look easy. 
Radio astronomy allows us to time travel without leaving Green Bank. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, which means the waves we receive were transmitted hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years ago.
GreenBankObservatory.org

Time Travel

The Universe is whispering to us.
These whispers are emitted by many kinds of objects, including stars, gas, dust, and comets, which only large radio telescopes, like the GBT, can detect. The GBT is so sensitive that it can pick up radio waves that were created by the Big Bang, emitted so long ago that we only receive 0.000000000000000000000000001 watts. Most of our planet is too "noisy" for these whispers to be heard, so the Green Bank Telescope resides in the National Quiet Zone, where very little radio noise is transmitted. Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest fully-steerable radio telescope that detects these minuscule signals.
GreenBankObservatory.org

Whispering