Pictured above is one of the world's premiere radio astronomical observatories: The Very Large Array [ http://info.aoc.nra…] (VLA). Each antenna dish is as big as a house [ http://www.whitehou…] (25 meters across) and mounted on railroad tracks. The VLA consists of 27 dishes - together capable of spanning the size of a city (35 kilometers). The VLA [ http://www.nrao.edu…] is the most sensitive radio telescope [ http://www.nro.nao.…] ever, and, through interferometry [ http://www.sciam.co…], can resolve a golf ball-sized radio source 150 kilometers away (0.04 arcsec). The VLA [ http://info.aoc.nra…] is continually making new discoveries, including determining the composition of galaxies [ http://www.aoc.nrao…], passing comets [ http://adsabs.harva…], quasars [ http://adsbit.harva…], HII regions [ http://www.astro.un…], and clusters of galaxies [ http://adsbit.harva…]. The VLA is also used to receive the weak radio signals broadcast from interplanetary spacecraft [ http://www.aoc.nrao…]. The VLA is located in New Mexico [ http://www.state.nm…], USA. A significant upgrade [ http://www.nrao.edu…] of VLA's capabilities is planned.
Explanation
Pictured above is one of the world's premiere radio astronomical observatories: The Very Large Array [ http://info.aoc.nra…] (VLA). Each antenna dish is as big as a house [ http://www.whitehou…] (25 meters across) and mounted on railroad tracks. The VLA consists of 27 dishes - together capable of spanning the size of a city (35 kilometers). The VLA [ http://www.nrao.edu…] is the most sensitive radio telescope [ http://www.nro.nao.…] ever, and, through interferometry [ http://www.sciam.co…], can resolve a golf ball-sized radio source 150 kilometers away (0.04 arcsec). The VLA [ http://info.aoc.nra…] is continually making new discoveries, including determining the composition of galaxies [ http://www.aoc.nrao…], passing comets [ http://adsabs.harva…], quasars [ http://adsbit.harva…], HII regions [ http://www.astro.un…], and clusters of galaxies [ http://adsbit.harva…]. The VLA is also used to receive the weak radio signals broadcast from interplanetary spacecraft [ http://www.aoc.nrao…]. The VLA is located in New Mexico [ http://www.state.nm…], USA. A significant upgrade [ http://www.nrao.edu…] of VLA's capabilities is planned.
