
We cultivate excellence, deliver value, enhance education, and engage the public. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare to secure the national defense."ĪUI collaborates with the scientific community and research sponsors to plan, build, and operate cutting-edge facilities. With them, he hoped to pursue observations of moons, comets, and the. In 1962, Dr Frank Drake in Green Bank became interested in experiments happening in telescope and receiver designs for detecting millimeter wavelengths, a shorter form of radio waves that is closer to infrared radiation. NRAO also provides both formal and informal programs in education and public outreach for teachers, students, the general public, and the media. Frank Drake and the 12-ft, 5-ft, and 3-ft Telescopes. Observing time on NRAO telescopes is available on a competitive basis to qualified scientists after evaluation of research proposals on the basis of scientific merit, the capability of the instruments to do the work, and the availability of the telescope during the requested time. Credit: Jim West/Alamy Going through millions of observations manually isn’t. Visit and Tour Green Bank Educational Opportunities History of Green Bank and the NRAO Local Area Information Other Green Bank Telescopes 43 Meter (140. Over the course of the next 10 years a total of five telescopes were place on site, ranging in size from the 40ft to 300ft in diameter. Within one year the first telescope on site was completed, the 85 ft Tatel Telescope. NRAO telescopes are open to all astronomers regardless of institutional or national affiliation. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is one of several helping to look for alien civilizations. On Octothe groundbreaking and dedication of the Green Bank site took place. Operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.įounded in 1956, the NRAO provides state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. The GBT’s massive metal support structure can rotate and tilt.

With a dish area of 2.4 acres, the GBT is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation These venerable telescopes are joined by the crown jewel of the observatory: the 328-foot-diameter Green Bank Telescope (GBT), which celebrated its twentieth birthday last summer.
