Frank Donald Drake was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist.
Marlinton is a town in and the county seat of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 998 at the 2020 census. Located along the Greenbrier River, it is known for its scenery.
The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory in the southwestern United States built in the 1970s. It lies in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, approximately 50 miles (80 km) west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twenty-eight 25-meter radio telescopes deployed in a Y-shaped array and all the equipment, instrumentation, and computing power to function as an interferometer. Each of the massive telescopes is mounted on double parallel railroad tracks, so the radius and density of the array can be transformed to adjust the balance between its angular resolution and its surface brightness sensitivity. Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way's center, probed the Universe's cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical mechanisms that produce radio emission.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radio astronomy. NRAO designs, builds, and operates its own high-sensitivity radio telescopes for use by scientists around the world.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank, West Virginia, US is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, surpassing the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in Germany. The Green Bank site was part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) until September 30, 2016. Since October 1, 2016, the telescope has been operated by the independent Green Bank Observatory. The telescope's name honors the late Senator Robert C. Byrd who represented West Virginia and who pushed the funding of the telescope through Congress.
Grote Reber was an American pioneer of radio astronomy, which combined his interests in amateur radio and amateur astronomy. He was instrumental in investigating and extending Karl Jansky's pioneering work and conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequencies.
The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) is a system of ten radio telescopes which are operated remotely from their Array Operations Center located in Socorro, New Mexico, as a part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). These ten radio antennas work together as an array that forms the longest system in the world that uses very long baseline interferometry. The longest baseline available in this interferometer is about 8,611 kilometers (5,351 mi).
The National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) is a large area of land in the United States designated as a radio quiet zone, in which radio transmissions are restricted by law to facilitate scientific research and the gathering of military intelligence. About half of the zone is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of west-central Virginia while the other half is in the Allegheny Mountains of east-central West Virginia; a small part of the zone is in the southernmost tip of the Maryland panhandle.
Project Ozma was a search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) experiment started in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank at Green Bank, West Virginia. The object of the experiment was to search for signs of life in distant planetary systems through interstellar radio waves. The program was named after Princess Ozma, ruler of the fictional land of Oz, inspired by L. Frank Baum's supposed communication with Oz by radio to learn of the events in the books taking place after The Emerald City of Oz. The search was publicized in articles in the popular media of the time, such as Time magazine and was described as the first modern SETI experiment.
Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) is a research management corporation that builds and operates facilities for the research community. It is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. The current president is Adam Cohen. The corporation's major current operating unit is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which it operates under a Cooperative Agreement with the National Science Foundation.
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) is a claimed sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, to which adverse symptoms are attributed. EHS has no scientific basis and is not a recognized medical diagnosis, although it is generally accepted that the experience of EHS symptoms is of psychosomatic origin. Claims are characterized by a "variety of non-specific symptoms, which afflicted individuals attribute to exposure to electromagnetic fields". Attempts to justify the claim that EHS is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields have amounted to pseudoscience.
SERENDIP is a Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program originated by the Berkeley SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Reber Radio Telescope is a historic radio telescope, located at the Green Bank Observatory near Green Bank, West Virginia, United States. Built in 1937 in Illinois by the astronomer Grote Reber, it was the first purpose-built parabolic radio telescope. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
Smith's Cloud is a high-velocity cloud of hydrogen gas located in the constellation Aquila at Galactic coordinates l = 39°, b = −13°. The cloud was discovered in 1963 by Gail Bieger, née Smith, who was an astronomy student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
The Green Bank Interferometer (GBI) is a former radio astronomy telescope located at Green Bank, West Virginia, U.S., and operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. It included three on-site radio telescopes of 85-foot (26m) diameter, designated 85-1, 85-3, and 85-2 and a portable telescope.
The Xinjiang Qitai 120m Radio Telescope (QTT) is a planned radio telescope to be built in Qitai County in Xinjiang, China. Upon completion, which is scheduled for 2028, it will be the world's largest fully steerable single-dish radio telescope. It is intended to operate at 150 MHz to 115 GHz. The construction of the antenna project is under the leadership of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Breakthrough Listen is a project to search for intelligent extraterrestrial communications in the Universe. With $100 million in funding and thousands of hours of dedicated telescope time on state-of-the-art facilities, it is the most comprehensive search for alien communications to date. The project began in January 2016, and is expected to continue for 10 years. It is a component of Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives program. The science program for Breakthrough Listen is based at Berkeley SETI Research Center, located in the Astronomy Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Green Bank Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in the National Radio Quiet Zone in Green Bank, West Virginia, U.S. It is the operator of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.
The Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) conducts experiments searching for optical and electromagnetic transmissions from intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations. The center is based at the University of California, Berkeley.
David Sutphin Heeschen was an American radio astronomer, best known for his long and influential tenure as director of the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) during the time that radio astronomy was transformed from a hands-on approach by a few individuals building their own instruments to a discipline with staff-supported user facilities servicing often large teams of dedicated observers.
