{"id":2477,"date":"2012-04-21T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-21T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2012-04-21T08:00:20","modified_gmt":"2012-04-21T12:00:20","slug":"janet-and-john-on-holidays-ch-2-the-second-even-bigger-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/history\/janet-and-john-on-holidays-ch-2-the-second-even-bigger-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"Janet and John on Holidays: Ch 2 \u2013 The second \u2013 even bigger bang!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An image of the Omega Nebula created by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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If you’re not already aware of my Sci Fi tendencies \u2013 this is probably your first visit to this blog \u2013 so welcome.<\/p>\n

Given my childhood love for Mr Spock, what else am I going to do on my New Mexico visit than go talk to Aliens. No, not the fake ones at Roswell. I’m talking about the real thing.<\/p>\n

On a high dry plateau\u00a0a couple of hours drive from\u00a0the Trinity Site is the Very Large Array radio telescope.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen “Contact”. I knew they are looking for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence at the VLA – so we headed west.<\/p>\n

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The VLA is staggering\u2026 The first sight of it comes as you crest a small rise and there it is spread out below you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Approaching the Very Large Array on the Plains of San Agustin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0There are 27 massive radio antennas that can be moved along railroad tracks to create a radio telescope more than 20 miles wide.<\/p>\n

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They use this machine to lift the antennas and move them to their new location - and they do it about every four months<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every now and then, the VLA has an open day where staff give tours and chat about what they are doing. I was going to ask them about Alien radio signals\u2026<\/p>\n

Except\u2026 they don\u2019t look for Aliens. SETI doesn’t get time on the VLA \u2013 they use other facilities. But that in no way spoiled the experience for me, because at the VLA they are investigating the biggest bang of them all \u2013 the creation of the universe.<\/p>\n

I’m going to be honest here \u2013 the average astrophysicist is probably a tad smarter than I am. \u00a0Would you believe a lot smarter than I am? I don’t pretend to understand the science behind what they are doing there, but I love the job description. Can you imagine a meeting in a bar\u2026..<\/p>\n

“Tell me,” he says, “what do you do?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Oh,” she nonchalantly replies. “I’m uncovering the origins of the universe.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0How cool is that?<\/p>\n

They look at black holes and far flung galaxies and protoplanetary discs\u2026 boldly looking where no man has gone before. (sorry \u2013 a sudden Star Trek moment)<\/p>\n

They have a pretty cool website<\/a> too\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013 with fabulous live status reports of exactly where each of the 27 antennas is \u2013 and what it’s looking at.<\/p>\n

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This tells you everything you need to know about each antenna - all you need is an astrophysicist to decipher it for you<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What’s really amazing is that this massive complex is over forty years old. They’ve recently upgraded the computers and the electronics \u2013 but the physical telescopes and their system of deployment are, by technology standards, dinosaurs. But very, very cool dinosaurs!<\/p>\n

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This is some of the old electronic gubbins they allowed us to see. We were told it wasn't working - but I saw lights!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We watched in awe as 25 of them suddenly realigned themselves \u2013 all in perfect synchronization. They were surprisingly fast as they moved. Only 25? Well, one had just been in for a refit and one was \u2013 would you believe \u2013 broken. Not the electronics, you understand, but the mechanism for turning it. Not that it matters, they can lose one or two for maintenance and still see the wonders of the universe.<\/p>\n

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It's hard to judge the size of the antenna from a photo. John is almost 6 ft tall. The antenna weighs more than 200 tons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, I failed in my search for Aliens \u2013 but that didn\u2019t matter\u2026 The VLA was pretty exciting. We failed in another part of the holiday too.\u00a0 We found the best beach in the world\u00a0 \u2026.. but the ocean was missing.<\/p>\n

More on that next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  If you’re not already aware of my Sci Fi tendencies \u2013 this is probably your first visit to this blog \u2013 so welcome. Given my childhood love for Mr Spock, what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-my-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}