QuarkNet@UNM's 2018 Very Large Array and Long Wavelength Array Tour

QuarkNet@UNM hosted teachers from four Albuquerque schools on a technical tour of the Very Large Array and Long Wavelength Array The tour was led by UNM astrophysics doctoral candidate Joseph Malins and UNM physics professor (and QuarkNet@UNM director) Sally Seidel. The Very Large Array and Long Wavelength Array are located on the Plains of San Agustin, east of Socorro, NM The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory. There are twenty-seven 25-meter radio telescopes in a Y-shaped array 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 The LWA is an effort to advance astronomy by using inexpensive antenna stations to build a very large aperture to probe the depths of space at the lowest frequencies - between 10 MHz and 88 MHz.