The Green Bank Telescope

Welcome to the NRAO in Green Bank, West Virginia

Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope

NRAO operates the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), the world's largest fully steerable single aperture antenna. In addition to the GBT, several other telescopes exist at the Green Bank site.
Image Credit: Bob Anderson, NRAO/AUI

GBT sees Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect -- the interaction of high energy electrons with the cosmic microwave background radiation!

SZ Effect in Galaxy Cluster Image of the ultra-luminous galaxy cluster RXJ1347-1145 in the optical (green - HST), xray (blue - Chandra), and millimeter (pink - GBT+MUSTANG).

The GBT image reveals a clear decrement in the microwave background, caused by the x-ray emitting plasma between the galaxies, that is offset from the peak x-ray signal by a merger-induced shock which has increased the gas temperature locally by more than a factor of two. This is the highest resolution (9") image of the SZ effect to date.

MUSTANG is a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and the NRAO, as well as NASA, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Cardiff University. More information is available at http://www.gb.nrao.edu/mustang/

NRAONSFAUI

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Last updated 15 June 2009 by Sue Ann Heatherly