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 | 10/20/08: Cosmic Lens Reveals Distant Galactic Violence. By cleverly unraveling the workings of a natural cosmic lens, astronomers have gained a rare glimpse of the violent assembly of a young galaxy in the early Universe. Their new picture suggests that the galaxy has collided with another, feeding a supermassive black hole and triggering a tremendous burst of star formation... |
 | 10/10/08: NRAO Welcomes New Assistant Director for Green Bank Operations. We are pleased to announce that Karen O'Neil has been named the new Assistant Director (AD) for Green Bank Operations, effective October 1... |
 | 10/8/08: New Research Center Will Free Chemistry from Earth's Bonds. A new research center combining the tools of chemistry and astronomy will use the unique laboratory of interstellar space to free the study of basic chemistry from the restrictive bonds of Earth. The Center for Chemistry of the Universe will allow scientists to explore new types of chemical reactions that occur under the extreme conditions of space. The center will combine laboratory experiments, theoretical studies, and radio-telescope observations to dramatically expand our understanding of the processes that build molecules that may "seed" young planets with the building blocks of life... |
 | 10/1/08: Young Galaxy's Magnetism Surprises Astronomers. Astronomers have made the first direct measurement of the magnetic field in a young, distant galaxy, and the result is a big surprise. Looking at a faraway protogalaxy seen as it was 6.5 billion years ago, the scientists measured a magnetic field at least 10 times stronger than that of our own Milky Way. They had expected just the opposite. The scientists made the discovery using the National Science Foundation's ultra-sensitive Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia... |
 | 9/22/08: NRAO welcomes new Head of the North American ALMA Science Center. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has announced the appointment of Dr. Carol Jean Lonsdale as the Observatory's new Assistant Director for the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC). As NAASC head, Lonsdale will lead the team that will enable North American astronomers to exploit the capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful new international astronomical facility under construction in the high-altitude Atacama Desert of northeastern Chile... |
 | 8/15/08: WV Governor Joe Manchin III Visits Green Bank and the Governor's School for Mathematics and Science (Produced by Allegheny Mountain Radio). |
 | 8/12/08: High-Tech 'Heart' of New-Generation Radio Telescope Passes First Test. The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA), part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), took a giant step toward completion on August 7 with successful testing of advanced digital hardware designed to combine signals from its upgraded radio-telescope antennas to produce high resolution images of celestial objects... |
 | 7/3/08: Unique Stellar System Gives Einstein a Thumbs-Up. Taking advantage of a unique cosmic coincidence, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. The new data indicate that the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory has passed yet another test... Watch Videos |
 | 6/23/08: Radio Telescopes Reveal Unseen Galactic Cannibalism. Radio-telescope images have revealed previously-unseen galactic cannibalism — a triggering event that leads to feeding frenzies by gigantic black holes at the cores of galaxies... |
 | 6/19/08: VLA Data Featured on New Argentine Stamp. Issued in a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Argentina's Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, this stamp shows supernova remnant W44 as imaged by the VLA and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: C. Brogan (NRAO), G. Castelletti (IAFE), G. Dubner (IAFE), N. Kassim (NRL)... |
 | 6/2/08: Mining for Molecules in the Milky Way. Scientists are using the giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to go prospecting in a rich molecular cloud in our Milky Way Galaxy. They seek to discover new, complex molecules in interstellar space that may be precursors to life... |
 | 5/22/08: Radio Telescopes to Keep Sharp Eye on Mars Lander. As NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander descends through the Red Planet's atmosphere toward its landing on May 25, its progress will be scrutinized by radio telescopes from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). At NRAO control rooms in Green Bank, West Virginia, and Socorro, New Mexico, scientists, engineers and technicians will be tracking the faint signal from the lander, 171 million miles from Earth... |
 | 5/21/08: Luck Reveals Stellar Explosion's First Moments. Through a stroke of luck, astronomers have witnessed the first violent moments of a stellar explosion known as a supernova. Astronomers have seen thousands of these stellar explosions, but all previous supernovae were discovered days after the event had begun... |
 | 5/20/08: Phoenix Mars Lander Mission. NRAO telescopes and personnel will collaborate with NASA this Sunday, May 25, as the Phoenix Mars Lander enters the atmosphere of Mars and lands on the planet's surface at about 07:53 p.m. EDT... |
 | 5/19/08: Research Center Renaming Will Honor Senator Domenici. New Mexico Tech and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) will rename the observatory's research center on the New Mexico Tech campus to honor retiring U.S. Senator Pete V. Domenici in a ceremony on May 30... Watch YouTube Video... |
 | 5/15/08: Weird Stellar Pair Puzzles Scientists. Astronomers have discovered a speedy spinning pulsar in an elongated orbit around an apparent Sun-like star, a combination never seen before, and one that has them puzzled about how the strange system developed... |
 | 5/14/08: Youngest Stellar Explosion in Our Galaxy Discovered. Astronomers have found the remains of the youngest supernova, or exploded star, in our Galaxy. The supernova remnant, hidden behind a thick veil of gas and dust, was revealed by the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which could see through the murk... |
 | 5/7/08: Distinguished Astronomer Awarded Jansky Lectureship. Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) have awarded the 2008 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship to Dr. Arthur M. Wolfe of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)... |
 | 4/23/08: Radio Telescope Reveals Secrets of Massive Black Hole. At the cores of many galaxies, supermassive black holes expel powerful jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. Just how they perform this feat has long been one of the mysteries of astrophysics... Watch Video |
 | 4/16/08: Stellar Birth in Galactic Wilderness. The NRAO Very Large Array and NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer reveal surprising numbers of young stars being born in the outermost regions of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, Messier 83... |
 | 2/18/08: Very Large Array Retooling for 21st-Century Science. An international project to make the world's most productive ground-based telescope 10 times more capable has reached its halfway mark and is on schedule to provide astronomers with an extremely powerful new tool for exploring the Universe... |
 | 2/15/08: World-Wide Effort Bringing ALMA Telescope Into Reality. In the thin, dry air of northern Chile's Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 16,500 feet, an amazing new telescope system is taking shape, on schedule to provide the world's astronomers with unprecedented views of the origins of stars, galaxies, and planets... |
 | 1/11/08: Massive Gas Cloud Speeding Toward Collision With Milky Way. A giant cloud of hydrogen gas is speeding toward a collision with our Milky Way Galaxy, and when it hits -- in less than 40 million years -- it may set off a spectacular burst of stellar fireworks... |
 | 1/10/08: New VLA Images Unlocking Galactic Mysteries. Astronomers have produced a scientific gold mine of detailed, high-quality images of nearby galaxies that is yielding important new insights into many aspects of galaxies, including their complex structures, how they form stars, the motions of gas in the galaxies, the relationship of "normal" matter to unseen "dark matter," and many others... |
 | 1/10/08: New Hydrogen Clouds in the M81 Group of Galaxies. A composite radio-optical image shows five new clouds of hydrogen gas discovered using the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The spiral galaxy M81 and its satellite, M82, are seen in visible light (white); intergalactic hydrogen gas revealed by the GBT is shown in red; and additional hydrogen gas earlier detected by the Very Large Array is shown in green... |
 | 1/9/08: Radio Telescopes' Precise Measurements Yield Rich Scientific Payoffs. Having the sharpest pictures always is a big advantage, and a sophisticated radio-astronomy technique using continent-wide and even intercontinental arrays of telescopes is yielding extremely valuable scientific results in a wide range of specialties. That's the message delivered to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Austin, Texas, by Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a leading researcher in the field of ultra-precise astronomical position measurements... |
 | 1/8/08: Cosmic Radio Series Brings Celestial Science Down to Earth. A new series of short radio programs designed to bring the space-age science of radio astronomy down to Earth is being launched by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and Allegheny Mountain Radio. The series, called Cosmic Radio, covers topics ranging from exciting recent scientific discoveries to how radio telescopes help explore the Universe, to the fascinating history of radio astronomy. |
 | 1/8/08: VLBA Movies Reveal New Details of Cosmic Jets. Astronomers have known for decades that supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies can shoot out jets of subatomic particles at tremendous speeds. However, details about the physics of such jets, including how they are generated, how the high-speed flows are shaped into jets, and how fast the particles are moving, among many others, have remained elusive. |
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.