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Radio Astronomy

by George Russell

The cover story of the February issue of the IEEE Spectrum, a magazine prepared and circulated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., entitled "Radio Astronomy: New Windows on the Universe", is an update on the very latest of radio telescopes available to radio astronomers and how they are being used. The treatment of the subject of radio astronomy is quite thorough and is an exciting revelation of how extensive this branch of astronomy has become. Far from being just an adjunct to optical techniques, radio astronomers operate literally hundreds of instruments around the world. Radio waves are being used to ascertain physical and chemical phenomena as close as the earths atmosphere and as far away as the quasars when the universe was perhaps five percent of its present age. What struck me as being particularly interesting is that present day radio instruments can make images with finer resolution than anything achievable by optic means.

Some scientists consider radio astronomy as one of the most interesting applications in all of electrical engineering. There seems to be two basic trends of where radio astronomy is heading. One is interferometry where signals from multiple antennas are electronically combined to simulate the resolution attainable with a single very large antenna. The other is the reception of shorter and shorter wavelengths.

Apparently radio astronomers continually complain that their antennas are never big enough! Shorter wavelengths mean higher resolution and the ability to detect certain molecules with high frequency spectra. From an engineering and radio astronomers viewpoint, what is needed are extremely low noise receivers, highly stable and accurate time references, advanced digital electronics, special-purpose integrated circuits to perform fast Fourier transforms, and mass storage systems that can handle data rates of up to 256 megabits per second.

Copies of Spectrum ought to be available at the various libraries around town. Considerable detail has been made available regarding all aspects of Radio Astronomy. I hope you have an opportunity to review this very exciting issue. I'll have to admit that it was radio astronomy in its early beginnings that really turned me on to astronomy in general. The very nature of the design and engineering required of the huge antennas involved and the state of the art electronics required to obtain the extremely low noise levels for the receivers was quite fascinating to me. And since the development of very effective digital electronics to bring everything together, the whole picture of radio astronomy has changed. I wonder what is next?

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