Science | Special Edition

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Humankind has turned its gaze towards the night sky since antiquity and wondered about the secrets of the Universe that we all inhabit. However, what we see with our eyes only tells us part of the story. With

the technological advancements of electrical engineering and computing in the 20th century, the field of radio astronomy has revealed some of the most striking natural phenomena and images ever seen in science. The black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, incredible rotational speeds of neutron stars, and beautiful cosmic jets (like those identified by University of West Indies students in inset image) have all been studied and cataloged with radio telescopes. The world class facilities operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO; https://public.nrao.edu/) and its international partners push the boundaries of science and technology with its astronomical instruments. The NRAO is a

EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH

RADIO ASTRONOMY

Dr. Brian R. KentNational Radio Astronomy Observatory

facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Collections of antennas working in concert as an interferometric radio telescope use a technique called aperture synthesis - effectively creating an instrument that can have a diameter many miles wide - sometimes as wide as the planet Earth. The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in the state of New Mexico, USA, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Atacama desert of Chile routinely create high resolution images that reveal never before seen detail of planet forming disks, massive radio galaxies, and matter accreting around black holes.

A major computational challenge faced by astronomers and computer scientists lies in the amount of data that are

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Brian R. Kent (https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~bkent) is a scientist with the NRAO in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. His publications and studies in astrophysics and computing include scientific visualizations of a variety of theoretical and observational phenomena.

He is interested in visualizing data for scientific analysis, 3D graphics, and introducing scientific programming and radio astronomy to a broader audience of students. Dr. Kent received his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Space Sciences from Cornell University.

produced by the telescope observations – often hundreds of Gigabytes in the space of several hours. Projects like the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS; https://public.nrao.edu/vlass/ ) aim to put high resolution images in the hands of astronomers soon after observations are completed. These science ready data products can be obtained by any interested astronomer or student, therefore broadening participation and impact to the community. The NRAO National and International Non-traditional Exchange (NINE; https://info.nrao.edu/do/odi/broader-impact-programs/Nine) program in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, brings new radio astronomy students into the field, specifically tailored to meet the growing need for data mining, analysis, and software engineering skills in astronomy. By creating easy access to data, radio astronomy grows its community of users that will innovate and make ground-breaking discoveries in the field.