Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy

[gary]

The September 2010 Edition of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
Spectrum magazine has a review of a book entitled "Cosmic Noise: A History
of Early Radio Astronomy" by Woodruff T. Sullivan III; Cambridge University Press,
2009; 574 pp. ISBN: 978-0-521-76524-4.

See -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/book-cosmic-noise-a-history-of-early-radio-astronomy

[Suzy]

That looks an interesting book Gary, thank you for posting. One of those famous radio sources would have to be the pulsar in the crab nebula. When they first came across this strange signal they didn't know what to make of it (ET calling home perhaps - must have crossed their minds), and then they finally worked out what it was. We rely on it heavily don't we!

[CraigS]

Ha !
Last night, I watched yet another episode of "How the Universe Works - Supernova".

Kaku tells the story that during the cold war, the US military put up satellites to detect Russian nuclear detonations from orbit.
They picked up heaps of signals. They believed it was the Russians testing weapons in space. With a little more analysis, they decided that they couldn't possibly doing this as their technology simply wasn't that advanced.

Rational sense prevailed and they finally figured out that the signals were from Supernovae - one of first times anyone had detected them.

Mind you, Kaku is a bit of an 'exaggerator' … it was quite amusing though, to picture what might have been going on in the Pentagon when they first detected these mystery signals ..

Its amazing how many folklore tales are developing now that the first Astronomical RF signals detected were ~>50 years ago.

We're starting to witness, first hand, just how good humans are at turning historical scientific discoveries into mythology within the span of one lifetime ! … I thought it took longer than this .. :question:

:)

Cheers

[Suzy]

Now I'm confused senseless as to which source is correct. Oh well. I had a look to see if I could find the info where my knowledge is based on, but only could come up with what I've quoted below. It's the same info, but the one I read had more details regarding the discovery. I seem to recall a woman first coming across it, then others got into it. In trying to find this info I came across something I didn't know- that William Herschell discovered Uranus. Wow!

"Pulsars are sources of powerful electromagnetic radiation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation), emitted in short and extremely regular pulses many times a second. They were a great mystery when discovered in 1967, and the team which identified the first one considered the possibility that it could be a signal from an advanced civilization.[24] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula#cite_note-23) However, the discovery of a pulsating radio source in the centre of the Crab Nebula was strong evidence that pulsars were formed by supernova explosions. They are now understood to be rapidly rotating neutron stars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star), whose powerful magnetic field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field) concentrates their radiation emissions into narrow beams."

Quoted from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula

Crikey, someones fibbing hey Craig?! :lol: Army or scientists :shrug:.

[astroron]

Jocelyne Bell is the ladies name Suzy.:thumbsup:

[CraigS]

Suzy;
You're probably right. I was surprised when I heard Kaku come out with this story .. maybe I got it wrong .. i didn't record it .. maybe you can check out the episode for us & let us know ??
Cheers

[Suzy]

Way to go! Thanks Ron! :thumbsup:. Not remembering her name was bugging me!

Craig, I will be watching that episode tonight (it's been recorded), so I will let you know. Kaku's version sounds more interesting though. :lol:

[astroron]

The fellow who led the group got the Nobel Prize, but she still gets the Glory:D:thumbsup:

[CraigS]

Us blokes are just unsung legends, huh ?
:)
Cheers

[astroron]

I can tell you the name Jocelyne Bell But could not tell you the name of her team leader, I am sure he is not bothered as he got the big one.;)

[CraigS]

Coming back to Gary's post, its interesting to see the other names mentioned who predate Penzias and Wilson:

Grote Reber - the US's 1st radio telescope (in his backyard); James Stanley Hey (studying Sun's effects on Radar), George Southworth (Sun observations), Martin Ryle (1st radio stars); Edward Bowen and Joseph Pawsey, of Sydney (detecting galaxies contributing to cosmic noise) …

We almost never hear these names in the media … which is a real shame.

Thanks for the post, Gary.

Very interesting.

Cheers

[astroron]

Until Carl Sagan came along and made Science more attractive to the public, there where only a few well known scientist,:(
such as Galilio, Newton , Einstein,there where a few others, but some of the greatest discoveries went unrecognized :(

[Suzy]

Okay, I have watched that Supernova episode and Kaku was talking about Gamma Rays. Everything else you said Craig was spot on. :thumbsup:
This was a corker of an episode, really enjoyed it and I will comment further on it in the Astronomy Books & Media Section in the Foxtel thread running.

Ron, you are absolutely right about Carl bring science to the public. Since I've been a little girl I have always been into astro, but Carl Sagen back in the 80's was the first person that I can recall who actually brought all that information to me through his television series. I have no recollection of an astronomer giving me information before that. He holds a very special and dear place in my memory. And I just remembered the movie Contact was on I think on tv on the weekend and I missed it :( (have seen it a couple of times, but wanted to see it again). I have a wonderful stack of his Cosmos episodes that I have been saving for later on in the mean time. ;)

[astroron]

Suzy I have never seen Contact:sadeyes:
I search the video shops and dvd sales for it but never any luck:(, If you get the chance of another viewing of it , you know what I want;)
Those Cosmos DVD's are my favourite ones to watch;):thumbsup:

[gary]

Hi Suzy,

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who made that discovery in the Crab Nebula in 1967,
originally nicknamed the source LGM-1 which stood for "Little Green Men 1". :lol:

As has been pointed out in this post -
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=645966&postcount=6
Bell Burnell will be giving a free public lecture in Melbourne this coming
December.

She will then be back in Adelaide on July 19 2011 where I note she will
be one of two keynote speakers at the 15th International Conference for
Women Engineers and Scientists.

Alas I don't see Brisbane on her schedule, as obviously it would be a wonderful
opportunity to meet this famous astrophysicist.

Australia, of course, has a long association with radioastronomy.

In the west of Sydney, a place called Badgery's Creek was the home of the
Fleurs field station where in 1954 the Mills Cross Telescope was built by
CSIRO and eventually operated by the School of Elec Eng at Sydney Uni to
look at radio sources. A succession of other radiotelescope arrays were
built there.
See http://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/newsletter/jun02/Flowering_of_Fleurs.htm
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_Cross_Telescope

One of the dishes that was used at Fleurs is now up near "The House" at the
Astronomical Society of New South Wales own dark sky property called
Wiruna which is near the tiny town of Ilford.
See http://www.asnsw.com/wiruna/rt.asp

If you ever get an opportunity to travel down to Narrabri in the central
north of NSW, I wholeheartedly recommend a visit to the state-of-the-art
Australia Telescope Compact Array which is an incredibly impressive
facility staffed and used by some of the best and brightest minds in the
country.

Best Regards

Gary