In order to limit RFI, the Federal Communications Commission in 1958 established the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) covering approximately 13,000 square miles and parts of both Virginia and West Virginia. “A source of close-by, man-made radio frequency can completely overwhelm these very faint signals from space.” Meaning, any radio frequency interference ( RFI) could corrupt that research. “The signals we detect from space are extremely faint,” says Harshal Gupta, the National Science Foundation program officer for the Green Bank Observatory. Julia RendlemanĪll of this has been accomplished simply by listening closely and deeply to the sky above this beautiful, rural town.īut to do this crucial work, compromises have to be made. Rain falls on an October morning at the Robert C. Earlier this year, one million gigabytes of SETI data collected over the last three years was released to the public, making it the largest trove ever of its kind. And SETI work is still ongoing at Green Bank. It’s also where he wrote his famed equation about the possibility of worlds other than ours. government-funded attempt to listen for extraterrestrial intelligence. In 1960, Frank Drake started Project Ozma here, the first U.S. Green Bank is also where serious search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) research was born. Just last month, researchers at the GBO uncovered the most massive neutron star ever detected. Here, telescopes have found black holes, pulsars, radiation belts, and gravitational waves. Over the last six-plus decades, the discoveries made at this observatory have come to define astronomy. It opened in 1958 as the United States’ first national astronomy observatory and remains today a crucial facility in the field of radio astronomy with a number of active telescopes, including the world’s largest steerable radio telescope, the Robert C. Right off of the road and nestled in a valley naturally protected by the Allegheny Mountains is the Green Bank Observatory. What is here, though, is one of the world’s most important facilities for the understanding of our universe. There are no shopping plazas, fast food restaurants, office buildings, or apartment complexes here. The road winds and curves past a convenience store, a school, a library, and a post office. Autumn is refreshingly crisp and colorful here in Green Bank, West Virginia. It’s the first of October and Route 92 into town is lined with trees dressed with greens, oranges, and yellows.
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