Saturday, May 05, 2007
Big, Sweaty Telescope
There I was, planning a non-astronomy related trip to Puerto Rico, and thinking "I gotta see the biggest telescope in the world before it gets shut down". So, like any astrotype, I do what I have to do to get them to be nice to me.
I offer to give a talk.
Good thing too, because the visitor center is closed on tuesdays, and the random public isn't allowed in past the gate. While in the rest of the world an astronomer is just a poorly dressed schlub, at a telescope astronomers are Very Important People. It's actually quite odd. See an astronomer in their tiny, cluttered office or at a bar in a conference hotel complaining about the cost of a beer, and they can easily be dismissed as an inconsequential nobody. And, to be honest, as you are working away, you often feel that nobody pays attention to what you do anyway. Not even other astronomers.
But then you go to a major telescope, and suddenly there is this dramatic, giant instrument which cost maybe $100,000,000 and has a full time staff of 50, 100 or more people monitoring it, repairing it, upgrading it, archiving the data it takes, maintaining all these computers, offices, even visitor quarters. And for an evening, or a day, or even a few days, all that staff and equipment is working to get YOU data for YOUR idea. Makes you feel those 5-9 years of graduate school really did make you into something special and were worth all the hard work and suffering.
Almost.
Anyway, there I was in Puerto Rico driving up windy mountain roads and see in the distance poking up over a hill a 365 foot tower. This is one of three supporting the massive platform
where the receivers are mounted 450 feet above the surface of the giant 1000 foot (thats 305 meters) radio dish that is the Arecibo Observatory telescope.
You know, the one you saw in the movie Contact or in Goldeneye. And, if you are wondering if the telescope really does look for extraterrestrials, the answer is yes. All the time. As part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, there is a special bit of equipment known as SERENDIP
This rack of electronics siphons off a bit of the signal from the telescope wherever it happens to be looking and sends it off to search for signs of other civilizations. So, not only might you discover what you are looking for when you observe, there's always the chance you will discover aliens. There is a similar set up at the Parkes telescope in Australia.
So, I drive up to the gate and tell the guard I am there to give a talk. They call in, give me a sticker to put on my shirt which I immediately lose, then tell me how to get to the observatory control buildings. There I meet Chris Salter, who had been a bit of an Astrohobo himself before settling down at Arecibo. He has all sorts of great stories about the observatory. Since there is a bit of time before my talk, we hike up to the edge of the dish to look it over.
Now I've known about Arecibo for a long time, and have even used it remotely before. I knew it was built into this big valley, with this monstrous track hanging above it on which moves around the receiver allowing you to point to the part of the sky you want to study. Somehow, though, it never occurred to me t
hat the dish itself was suspended above the surface of the valley, and underneath is a unique ecosystem. The surface of the dish is metal mesh, so rain and partially blocked sunlight flow through it. This makes it very similar to a rainforest, except the dish is playing the role of the trees. At the bottom of the valley is a sinkhole that drains the rain down to a huge underground river that you can see in a set of nearby caves (I didn't make it there, so I can't tell you much more about them).
Although the Arecibo observatory has made a slew of cool discoveries as a radio telescope, perhaps the coolest things it does is when it becomes the world's most powerful radar dish. Giant radio signals have been sent out from it and bounced off of all sorts of things in our solar system. The tiny bit of the signal that is reflected off of, say a nearby killer asteroid (ok, maybe not a killer asteroid, but many near earth objects, some of which could be killer asteroids) and makes it back to Earth is then detected by the dish. One of the most recent radar discoveries made using the Arecibo radar (in combination with the 100 meter Greenbank Telescope and NASA/JPL antennas in Goldstone CA) is that Mercury has a molten core.
Well, eventually I had to give my talk allowing a bunch of tired researchers to take an afternoon nap. Then I even got sort of paid: I was given a nice mug which is all black when empty but shows a picture of the observatory when something hot is put in it. Well worth the effort. So, before it gets shut down so the operating funds can be shifted to support ALMA
go take a vacation to Puerto Rico and spend a day visiting the telescope and the nearby caves. And then go down to the shore and jump in the ocean. Because it is a tropical island, after all, and there are other reasons to go to Puerto Rico...or so I hear....
I offer to give a talk.
Good thing too, because the visitor center is closed on tuesdays, and the random public isn't allowed in past the gate. While in the rest of the world an astronomer is just a poorly dressed schlub, at a telescope astronomers are Very Important People. It's actually quite odd. See an astronomer in their tiny, cluttered office or at a bar in a conference hotel complaining about the cost of a beer, and they can easily be dismissed as an inconsequential nobody. And, to be honest, as you are working away, you often feel that nobody pays attention to what you do anyway. Not even other astronomers.
But then you go to a major telescope, and suddenly there is this dramatic, giant instrument which cost maybe $100,000,000 and has a full time staff of 50, 100 or more people monitoring it, repairing it, upgrading it, archiving the data it takes, maintaining all these computers, offices, even visitor quarters. And for an evening, or a day, or even a few days, all that staff and equipment is working to get YOU data for YOUR idea. Makes you feel those 5-9 years of graduate school really did make you into something special and were worth all the hard work and suffering.
Almost.
Anyway, there I was in Puerto Rico driving up windy mountain roads and see in the distance poking up over a hill a 365 foot tower. This is one of three supporting the massive platform
where the receivers are mounted 450 feet above the surface of the giant 1000 foot (thats 305 meters) radio dish that is the Arecibo Observatory telescope.
You know, the one you saw in the movie Contact or in Goldeneye. And, if you are wondering if the telescope really does look for extraterrestrials, the answer is yes. All the time. As part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, there is a special bit of equipment known as SERENDIPThis rack of electronics siphons off a bit of the signal from the telescope wherever it happens to be looking and sends it off to search for signs of other civilizations. So, not only might you discover what you are looking for when you observe, there's always the chance you will discover aliens. There is a similar set up at the Parkes telescope in Australia.
So, I drive up to the gate and tell the guard I am there to give a talk. They call in, give me a sticker to put on my shirt which I immediately lose, then tell me how to get to the observatory control buildings. There I meet Chris Salter, who had been a bit of an Astrohobo himself before settling down at Arecibo. He has all sorts of great stories about the observatory. Since there is a bit of time before my talk, we hike up to the edge of the dish to look it over.
Now I've known about Arecibo for a long time, and have even used it remotely before. I knew it was built into this big valley, with this monstrous track hanging above it on which moves around the receiver allowing you to point to the part of the sky you want to study. Somehow, though, it never occurred to me t
hat the dish itself was suspended above the surface of the valley, and underneath is a unique ecosystem. The surface of the dish is metal mesh, so rain and partially blocked sunlight flow through it. This makes it very similar to a rainforest, except the dish is playing the role of the trees. At the bottom of the valley is a sinkhole that drains the rain down to a huge underground river that you can see in a set of nearby caves (I didn't make it there, so I can't tell you much more about them).Although the Arecibo observatory has made a slew of cool discoveries as a radio telescope, perhaps the coolest things it does is when it becomes the world's most powerful radar dish. Giant radio signals have been sent out from it and bounced off of all sorts of things in our solar system. The tiny bit of the signal that is reflected off of, say a nearby killer asteroid (ok, maybe not a killer asteroid, but many near earth objects, some of which could be killer asteroids) and makes it back to Earth is then detected by the dish. One of the most recent radar discoveries made using the Arecibo radar (in combination with the 100 meter Greenbank Telescope and NASA/JPL antennas in Goldstone CA) is that Mercury has a molten core.
Well, eventually I had to give my talk allowing a bunch of tired researchers to take an afternoon nap. Then I even got sort of paid: I was given a nice mug which is all black when empty but shows a picture of the observatory when something hot is put in it. Well worth the effort. So, before it gets shut down so the operating funds can be shifted to support ALMA
go take a vacation to Puerto Rico and spend a day visiting the telescope and the nearby caves. And then go down to the shore and jump in the ocean. Because it is a tropical island, after all, and there are other reasons to go to Puerto Rico...or so I hear....
