If you’re not already aware of my Sci Fi tendencies – this is probably your first visit to this blog – so welcome.
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.
On a high dry plateau a couple of hours drive from the Trinity Site is the Very Large Array radio telescope.
I’ve seen “Contact”. I knew they are looking for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence at the VLA – so we headed west.
The VLA is staggering… The first sight of it comes as you crest a small rise and there it is spread out below you.
There are 27 massive radio antennas that can be moved along railroad tracks to create a radio telescope more than 20 miles wide.
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…
Except… they don’t look for Aliens. SETI doesn’t get time on the VLA – 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 – the creation of the universe.
I’m going to be honest here – the average astrophysicist is probably a tad smarter than I am. Would 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…..
“Tell me,” he says, “what do you do?”
“Oh,” she nonchalantly replies. “I’m uncovering the origins of the universe.”
How cool is that?
They look at black holes and far flung galaxies and protoplanetary discs… boldly looking where no man has gone before. (sorry – a sudden Star Trek moment)
They have a pretty cool website too – with fabulous live status reports of exactly where each of the 27 antennas is – and what it’s looking at.
What’s really amazing is that this massive complex is over forty years old. They’ve recently upgraded the computers and the electronics – but the physical telescopes and their system of deployment are, by technology standards, dinosaurs. But very, very cool dinosaurs!
We watched in awe as 25 of them suddenly realigned themselves – 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 – would you believe – 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.
So, I failed in my search for Aliens – but that didn’t matter… The VLA was pretty exciting. We failed in another part of the holiday too. We found the best beach in the world ….. but the ocean was missing.
More on that next week.