Radio telescopes draw tourists to West Virginia

GREEN BANK, W.Va. -- Rising out of the mist in this Appalachian valley, the stark white disc towers above the countryside, looking more like a flying saucer than the most advanced listening device in the world.

Taller than the Statue of Liberty, the Robert C. Byrd Telescope shares the valley with a half-dozen other white discs, all pointing toward the cosmos.

The Byrd telescope and its companions are part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which collects radio waves and uses them to study galaxies, pulsars, planets, asteroids and forming stars.

Tourists as well as visiting scientists are welcome to visit this observatory, about 190 miles east of Charleston and 230 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

"It's pretty cool," said Katie Aguilera, who recently led a group of 12- and 13-year-olds looking for an adventure on a rainy day. "It feels like we are walking into Star Wars."

Commissioned last August

The main attraction is the Byrd telescope. With it's 2.3-acre disc, it is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.

The 16-million-pound device can be pointed with an accuracy of one arcsecond. That's equivalent to the width of a human hair seen from six feet away.

The telescope, which cost $79 million and took nearly a decade to build, was named after West Virginia's senior senator for his efforts to win congressional approval for its funding. The 485-foot telescope replaced a 300-foot-tall model that collapsed in 1988 after 26 years of use. Officials blamed the failure on metal fatigue.

Although it was commissioned last August, a series of shakedown tests were stopped in April after it was discovered that the telescope's baseplate was not fully secured. Bolts that held the plate were starting to snap. Testing resumed July 20.

Before it was taken off-line, observers used it to map an asteroid and worked with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to map the surface of Venus. Radar signals bounced off the planet from Arecibo were collected and recorded in Green Bank.

Land of OZMA

Smaller telescopes built on-site after the observatory was established in the late 1950s also have been used for important research.

Astronomer Frank Drake used one in 1960 for Project OZMA, his search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The project got its name after the mythical land of Oz. Although Drake found no evidence of extraterrestrial life, ongoing research elsewhere uses the principals he established.

Another telescope works in conjunction with three others around the world to track Halca, a small radio telescope Japan launched into orbit in 1997 to study black holes.

This array of radio telescopes are in Green Bank because the mountains around the Deer Creek Valley offer a natural buffer to Earth-generated radio and TV signals.

Congress also established the National Radio Quiet Zone to protect Green Bank and a U.S. Navy radio receiving facility in Sugar Grove, about 40 miles away.

Radio traffic in the 13,000-square-mile zone is limited. Anyone who wants to use a radio frequency within the zone must coordinate with the observatory, including those who operate public and private mobile signal systems, wireless communications, maritime, aviation, radio, cable and satellite communication systems.

No special restrictions

There are no special restrictions for observatory visitors, other than they cannot drive to the telescopes. Only diesel-powered tour buses and staff cars are allowed that close because the ignition systems on other vehicles interfere with the telescopes' reception.

The Green Bank observatory is one of several operated by the NRAO, which is part of the National Science Foundation and operated by Associated Universities, Inc. The others include the Very Large Array near Scorro, N.M., and the Very Long Baseline Array, a group of 10 dishes spread across the nation.

"I think people are genuinely interested in astronomy and what's out there. It's a very accessible science compared to other fields," said Deputy Site Director Richard Prestage said. "If we get kids come through there and they end up being astronomers, that's a great thing.

"We do genuinely believe it is part of our mission to let the public know what we are doing." The visitors center is open and hourly guided tours are available from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily in October. Group tours can be arranged at other times.