Green Bank Observatory’s link to the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

the 85-2 and 85-3 radio telescopes
85-2 and 85-3 working together with the 85-1 (not shown) in the Green Bank Interferometer, the NRAO’s first array. (NSF/AUI)

Three scientists won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for their study of the super massive black hole that sits at the center of our galaxy. This black hole, Sagittarius A*, as it’s known, was first discovered as a bright radio object in 1974 at the Green Bank Observatory.

Bruce Balick and Robert Brown used three radio dishes and a fourth smaller dish about 35 km away to form an interferometer.

Watch the full story here, produced by Bruce Young of WDBJ News 7 in Lexington, Virginia.

Learn more about interferometers here.

Jill Malusky

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