Radio astronomy facts for kids
Radio astronomy is astronomy which studies celestial objects at radio frequencies.
The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was made in the 1930s. Karl Jansky found radiation coming from the Milky Way. Later, other sources of radio emission were found. These include stars and galaxies, as well as entirely new classes of objects, such as radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and masers.
The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, evidence for the Big Bang theory, was made through radio astronomy.
Radio astronomy is done using large radio antennas. These are called radio telescopes. They are used alone, or with multiple linked telescopes. The use of interferometry allows radio astronomy to achieve high angular resolution. The resolving power of an interferometer is set by the distance between its components, not the size of its components.
Images for kids
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Grote Reber's Antenna at Wheaton, Illinois, world's first parabolic radio telescope
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Chart on which Jocelyn Bell Burnell first recognised evidence of a pulsar, in 1967 (exhibited at Cambridge University Library)
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The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), many antennas linked together in a radio interferometer
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An optical image of the galaxy M87 (HST), a radio image of same galaxy using Interferometry (Very Large Array – VLA), and an image of the center section (VLBA) using a Very Long Baseline Array (Global VLBI) consisting of antennas in the US, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden and Spain. The jet of particles is suspected to be powered by a black hole in the center of the galaxy.
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A radio image of the central region of the Milky Way galaxy. The arrow indicates a supernova remnant which is the location of a newly discovered transient, bursting low-frequency radio source GCRT J1745-3009.
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Antenna 70 m of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, California
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Antenna 110m of the Green Bank radio telescope, USA
See also
In Spanish: Radioastronomía para niños
