VLA

We are here!!  Arrived at our 3 month destination in Camp Verde, Arizona.  Kind of nice to unhook and put out all our stuff knowing that we will not be moving again in the next few days.  Nice to be in one place for awhile.   More about this in a later blog.

Last Sunday we went to see the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro, Arizona.  If you have seen the movie Contact, with Jodie Foster, you will recognize some of what you saw in the movie in the pictures I captured.

Here are a couple of images from the movie that may jog your memory if you saw the movie a while ago.

In one of the scenes in the movie Jodie Foster was sitting on the hood of the car in the above picture.  Turns out when they were filming these scenes, the area experienced lots of rain non-stop for days.  Kind of unheard of in that area.  In the visitor center they have pictures of Jodie on a pretend car with umbrellas over her and the laptop covered in a plastic bag.  It took some good editing to make it look the right way in the movie.

So what is the VLA?  Using my favorite source Wikipedia – “is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin.”  This area is used because of its relative flat lands and it is surrounded by mountains to help block any radio wave interference from cell towers or from populated areas.  Even when we entered the visitor area, we had to put our cell phones in airplane mode and turn the phones off.

Now for the geeky stuff about the VLA:  “The VLA comprises twenty-seven 25-meter radio telescopes deployed in a Y-shaped array and all the equipment, instrumentation, and computing power to function as an interferometer. Each of the massive telescopes is mounted on double parallel railroad tracks, so the radius and density of the array can be transformed to adjust the balance between its angular resolution and its surface brightness sensitivity.[1] Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of
black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way’s center, probed the Universe’s cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical
mechanisms that produce radio emission.”  (Source:  Wikipedia)

Even not fully understanding the science behind what they are doing there, you were really in awe standing among the numerous telescopes.  They only allow visitors to get close to one of the telescopes and we were lucky to experience it moving while we were there.  Scientists bid (via written submission) for the chance to “use” time on the telescopes for their research projects.  Based on what project is being used at a specific time, the telescopes will shift direction.

The drive to the sight was about 2 hours away from Alburqueque and was an interesting drive and we started to see the VLA from a ways off.

Once we entered the visitor center we could see more of the telescopes close up.

As I indicated the self guided walk does give you an up close view of one of the telescopes which started turning while we were standing there.

Also if you saw the movie you may remember the scene where Jodie Foster is contemplating life on a ridge near the site.  As I indicated the VLA was built on flat land on purpose and the ridge was actually filmed in a canyon not too far from the site.

We were glad we took the 2 hour drive to see the VLA it was definitely worth the trip!

TIFN