https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqX9vLj3_7w
Even if the National Radio Astronomy Observatory ’s 33 - yr - oldVery turgid Arraydoesn’t audio familiar , it in all likelihood looks familiar : It was the background to Jodie Foster ’s piece of work in Contact . Wonderfully , Foster serves as the narrator of this awful mini - doc about the VLA , which was latterly rebuilt from the inside out in a massive Reconstruction Period projection .
The VLA is the workhorse of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , which land up build up its 27 monolithic antennae in rural New Mexico in 1980 . Since then , the Array has collected radiocommunication waves from the uttermost reach of the cosmos , contributing to our knowledge of all sort of phenomena . In Contact that meant intercommunicate with extraterrestrial lifetime , but the reality is actually just as exciting — the VLA was the lynchpin in estimate out what dim holes , quasars , pulsars , and supernova remnants really are .
As Foster excuse in Beyond the Visible , this beautiful 24 - minute infotainment , a decade ago the VLA was at the end of its utilitarian lifespan . Unwilling to abandon it , the NRAO launched a mammoth labor to reconstruct the electronics inside each 82 - substructure - wide lulu . Today , it ’s reclaimed its rubric as one of the first earthly explorers of the universe ’s out edge .
And yes — you could go travel to the VLA if you ever find yourself on Route 60 . Or , you used to be able to — the entire NRAO ( including the VLA ) isshuttered indefinitelyduring the governing shutdown . [ YouTubeviaSlate ]
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