On the 22nd the Space Messengers team went to the Q Station and Very Large Array (VLA). We learned what they are and what they do as well as hanging out with each other. First on the agenda was the Q Station in Albuquerque. The Q Station is this amazing space themed collaborative space, with interior design meant to mimic that of the 1950s with space elements incorporated. For what the Q Station does, lets imagine a new startup company made by a couple of new college graduates. They are engineers and they have this thing they've made which would benefit the space industry. Unfortunately, they don't have any business experience and don't know how to properly sell what they have made and they don't have the connections to reach out to someone who would buy it. What Q Station does is they provide those startups (free of charge) with access to people who will help them market what they have as well as connections to people who would be interested. The second thing Q Station does is promote conversation and collaboration between individuals who would not have otherwise met each other, but whose projects would be mutually beneficial. Their space perfectly matches their goal with comfortable seating aplenty in a large and open room. They also have a podcast called Q Station, which we got to see a little of the behind the scenes for. Afterwards we drove down to Socorro to the VLA to learn about that. The VLA is a radio telescope, which works by combining the images of 27 dishes that each receive radio waves, plus one extra dish spare. The VLA can see 82% of the sky and is the most productive ground based telescope, outcompeted by the Hubble telescope, which is the most productive/most productive space based telescope.
Now, the VLA is kind of in the middle of nowhere, but this was intentional. The dry conditions at the VLA stop water molecules from distorting the signals. Just like water makes light we can see look weird, water will do the same thing to radio waves. The VLA is also far away from everything else to stop other radio waves from cities and other human technology from interfering with the telescope, which the mountains surrounding the VLA help with. The VLA is super sensitive, to the point where if a cellphone was used on Jupiter the telescopes could detect it, so it was super important to keep our phones on airplane mode and now have any other devices that could interfere around. Even the electronics in the dishes themselves have to be kept at 15 degrees kelvin to stop the electronics from producing infrared radiation, which is created when anything produces heat. Employees at the VLA use walkie talkies instead of phones to communicate, and sometimes those have to be turned off too because the walkie talkie frequency interferes with what they are trying to detect. Weather does happen at the VLA. Each dish comes equipped with a lightning rod and the dishes don't have watertight seals, so any rainwater will just drip out of the dish. Sometimes snow does pile up though, so operators will either try to tilt the dish so the snow slides out or they will point the dish at the sun so the snow melts that way. When ice forms on the steps up the dish the operators will do the same thing, just this time pointing the back of the dish to the sun. These are all fairly harmless to the dishes, with the most harmful thing being hail. Wind can also pose a threat to the dishes which can act akin to sails when in their normal detecting position, so each dish is equipped with its own wind sensor which instructs the dish to point directly up if winds are too high, which is the most stable position for the dish. Whenever anything is off with the dish, you will see them pointed directly up while the problem is resolved, or when they are moving the dishes. The button below will take you to the VLA page where you can get even more fun facts if you so wish. The page also has a cool augmented reality feature that works with most phone cameras which can show you what a VLA dish would look like in your backyard.
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AuthorAmelia Martinez is the creator of this website. In this blog she recounts activities from her time working with Agnes Chavez as a STEMArts Apprentice. Archives
October 2022
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