Echoes of the Night Sky
March 16th 2011 11:50
Category: Radio Astronomy
Tidbinbilla 70-m Radio Telescope Canberra Australia :image CarlCan
Ever since radio engineer Karl Jansky first heard the weird sounds of space the quest to find other civilizations had begun. It began in the early 1930s when Trans Atlantic communication was in it’s infancy.
Communication quality was extremely poor often plagued with radio static hiss and signal fading. Never the less to call someone across the Atlantic cost an arm and leg.
Jansky was determined to resolve the problem of receiving poor signals. He decided to design a new antenna. Jansky set upon the task of designing and building a directional antenna that was capable of receiving a much wider range of wavelengths than conventional antennas of the time.
He developed a radio receiver that generated very little internal static. With this newly designed radio receiver, Jansky was able to measure and record the variations in static. The antenna being a directional device served to pinpoint the strongest and the weakest signals.
The antenna that Jansky assembled was mounted on a set of wheels attached to a turntable. This allowed the antenna to move in a circular direction enabling it to scan the sky once every 30 minutes.
"Jansky's merry-go-round
He classed the static into three different categories local thunderstorms, distant thunderstorms, and steady static, he also attributed the clicking noises as distant thunderstorms.
Jansky made a curious discovery his radio receiver detected a hissing noise that peaked in intensity when the antenna was pointed at certain parts of the sky. Jansky put the hissing static down the Sun.
He initially assumed that the static was solar-generated. As he continued to make radio observations Jansky discovered that the peaks were moving further away from the Sun. He observed that the peak intensities were cyclical occurring every 23 hours and 56 minutes.
He later contended that the steady hiss type static was extraterrestrial in origin.Jansky was one of the pioneer s of early radio astronomy.
The pioneering work done by Karl Jansky and others helped develop radio astronomy as we now know it.
There are many dedicated radio astronomers world wide the early principals that Jansky used are still being implemented today.
The search to find extraterrestrial intelligence is daunting however the search continues to find answers to how stars form and die.
Perhaps an organization at the forefront is the SETI Institute. “The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.”
If people are interested in participating in the search SETI has developed a software program whereby you can donate your computer’s down time to process data. If you would like to participate you can download the free program from SETI.
If you would like to participate you can download the free program from SETI Here
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Comment by S.L.
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Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
Perhaps E.T. might answer us one day...
Now that would be interesting