T O P I C 5 What Channel Is That?

Light isn’t the only kind of radiation coming from the stars. In the late
nineteenth century, scientists found out that light is just one form of
electromagnetic radiation. Other forms include radio waves, infrared
waves (heat), ultraviolet waves, X rays, and gamma rays. Look at
Figure 5.33. This shows the entire spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.
Notice that light waves occupy only a small portion of the entire spec-
trum. In Topic 5, you will focus on radio waves and how astronomers use
them to learn about the composition of stars — radio astronomy.

infrared visible ultraviolet

radio waves microwaves X-rays gamma rays
radiation light radiation
Frequency
103 104 105 106 107 108 109 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 (hertz)
Wavelength
105 104 103 102 10 1 10-1 10-2 10-3 10-4 10-5 10-6 10-7 10-8 10-9 10-10 10-11 10-12 10-13 10-14 10-15 (metres)

Figure 5.33 The electromagnetic spectrum.

Find Out
Give Me Some Static!
Lightning bolts emit radio waves. In fact, any 3. Bring the radio close to where you make a
static electric sparks do the same. In this activ- static spark. Listen on the radio for the stat-
ity, you will make static sparks and try to ic electricity to “broadcast” on the radio.
detect radio waves from them.
4. Repeat step 3 several times but at different
Materials
frequencies (between different stations).
small A.M./F.M. radio Record your findings in your notebook.
wool
plastic 5. Switch to F.M. and repeat step 3 at differ-
fur or hair ent frequencies.
Procedure Performing and Recording
What Did You Find Out? Analyzing and Interpreting
Communication and Teamwork
1. Could your radio pick up the static on
1. Experiment to find a way to get a fairly A.M.? On F.M.?
good static shock with the materials
provided. 2. Why do you think that lightning causes
problems for radio listeners?
2. Tune the radio between two A.M. stations.
You should hear a hissing sound. 3. Name three things in your house that might
make static shocks. Do they cause radio
interference?

What Channel Is That? • MHR 393

 Radio Telescopes
Telephone calls used to
be transmitted by radio
Astronomers were able
waves. The reception was
to adapt radar equip- poor, and people had to
ment used in World shout over hiss and noise
War II to become the on the line. In 1932, Karl
first radio telescopes. Jansky, an engineer work-
This was quite simple ing for Bell Telephone
because radar equip-
Laboratories, was given
ment emits and
detects radio waves. the job of tracking down
When radar equipment the radio emissions that
emits radio waves, the were interfering with these
waves reflect off an communications. Jansky
object allowing the built a radio antenna.
distance to the reflect-
Using this antenna, he
ing object to be
calculated. However,
learned to identify radio
astronomical radars do emissions that rose and set
not emit radio waves with the Sun, planets, and
because there are no stars. From these observa- Figure 5.34 The world’s first radio telescope (inset) by
objects reflecting tions, he concluded that Karl Jansky, marked a big moment in science as was
them. Instead, the these radio wave sources Galileo’s optical telescope 300 years before.
astronomical radars
came from space.
(the radio telescopes)
simply detect radio Grote Reber, a radio engineer and amateur astronomer, explored
waves emitted from Jansky’s discovery further. Reber built a radio dish (a radio telescope) and
objects in space. “listened” to the sky during the 1930s. He discovered that the strongest
radio waves came from particular places in the sky. He thought there must
be some radio objects in space that were responsible for these emissions.
“Listening” to the stars through Reber’s radio telescope would be like
Reber found that the tuning a radio between channels. Reber would hear hissing static. The
object outside of the hiss would become louder when he tuned in to an area in space that was
solar system producing giving off large amounts of radio waves — the bright radio objects.
the strongest radio
waves (called the Bigger Radio Telescopes
brightest radio object) is
the centre of our galaxy Recall that the resolving power of an optical telescope relates to the fine-
— the Milky Way. The ness of detail it can image. The wavelength of the light is one factor for
Sun is the brightest of the resolving power — the smaller the wavelength, the better the resolv-
all the radio objects in ing power. Radio waves have wavelengths that are millions of times
the sky, and Jupiter is longer than light waves. This means radio waves provide images with less
the second brightest.
resolution than light waves. However, radio waves penetrate dust clouds
in the galaxy where visible light stops. So radio telescopes gave
astronomers information about the universe that they never had before.

394 MHR • Space Exploration

“Seeing” Radio Waves
You may wonder how radio astronomy produces images of
radio sources. Radio telescopes cannot “see” radio sources. In
the early days of professional radio astronomy, the movement
of dials and needles monitored the incoming radio waves. The
needle is similar to the kind you see in an ammeter or volt-
meter. Astronomers then graphed the data. Today, computers
store the same data and false colour it to produce images of
the radio waves The colour is coded to the strength of the sig-
nal. Usually, blues are for low intensities and as the signal gets
stronger, the colours go through greens, yellows, reds, and
finally to whites.

Optical Connections
Radio astronomers wanted to identify their strong radio
sources with objects they had seen with optical telescopes. Figure 5.35 The collecting dishes of the
This was so they could be sure just what objects were emitting first radio telescopes were huge
compared to optical telescopes. Parke’s
radio waves. This was impossible at first because the radio
radio telescope dish in New South Wales,
images had such low resolution. As the radio telescopes Australia, is 64 m in diameter.
improved, astronomers could make these optical connections.
For one example of an optical connection, compare Figure
5.36A and Figure 5.36B.
Figure 5.36A This is a
visible light image of
Centaurus A, an active
radio galaxy, 16 million
light-years away. (Any
galaxy that emits strongly
in radio waves is called
an active galaxy.) You see
the central nucleus of the
galaxy with a lane of dust
across it.

The Lovell radio telescope,

in Britain, was built in
1957. Radio telescopes Figure 5.36B This is a radio image of Centaurus A. The
work just as well through telescope scanned the sky near the galaxy, and the
clouds as through clear skies, so rainy places, like radio waves detected were recorded in a computer. The
Britain, are fine for radio telescopes! computer then converted the strength of the signals to
colours, which produced the image shown here. The
visible light image covers only the white section of the
central region of the radio image. The radio images
show how the energy emitted from the galaxy extends
beyond what we can see in visible light.

What Channel Is That? • MHR 395

 Connecting Radio Telescopes
Astronomers improved radio images by connecting
telescopes. If two radio telescopes (and more recently
optical telescopes) are separated by some distance, but
connected electronically, their signals can be com-
bined using a computer. The resulting images are as
good as if one telescope
were used that was as big
as the distance between
Figure 5.37A The Very Large Array is a
the two. This method is
Y-shaped array of 27 identical, 25 m dishes called interferometry.
on railroad tracks. Electric cables connect the It’s like seeing with many
dishes. Each of the three sections of the Y is eyes instead of one. The
about 20 km long. The VLA has a resolution
so fine that the centimetre marks on a ruler
most accurate set of con-
could be seen 5 km away — if the ruler were nected telescopes in the
broadcasting radio waves! world is the Very Large
Array (VLA) in New
Mexico, U.S.
Figure 5.37B A single dish from the Very
Large Array.

Radio Telescopes
Bigger Than Earth
Improvements in computers
and the precision of modern
clocks have enabled radio
astronomers to connect their
telescopes without wires. This
is called very long baseline
Figure 5.38 The extra interferometry (VLBI). VLBI
resolution offered by the produces images 100 times as
VLA was used to produce
an image of the central
detailed as the largest optical
white region of Figure telescopes that exist today.
5.36B. The scale of this Astronomers combine signals
image is similar to the from any (and as many as they
scale of the visible light
image in Figure 5.36A.
want) radio telescopes in the Figure 5.39 Canadian astronomers are participating in
world. Astronomers record an international VLBI project called VSOP (VLBI Space
Many astronomers believe
Observatory Program). This project uses a radio dish in
that a black hole is drawing each telescope’s signal with space and an array of ground-based telescopes, which
material into it at the centre timing marks. The signals are simulates a single dish twice Earth’s diameter!
of this galaxy. The energy
is given off by material
transferred to computer disks, Astronomers at the University of Calgary calibrate and
loaded onto a central comput- image some of the data for this program. This
before it disappears into
telescope has been able to image objects over 13 billion
the black hole. er, and combined to form one light-years from Earth.
image. In theory, astronomers
can create a telescope as big as
Earth using this technique.

396 MHR • Space Exploration

As a child, Betsy Barton watched television astronomy shows and read all she could about
astronomy. She began her career with a lifelong love for physics and math. After receiving
an undergraduate degree in this area, she discovered her love for astronomy. Her Ph.D.
thesis project explored galaxy interactions, and she enjoyed it so much that she has car-
ried on this research at the National Research Council. Now, she’s a professional galaxy
gazer in her position as a research associate in Victoria.
Betsy is particularly interested in what happens when two galaxies come close to each oth-
er and the effects they have on one another. As galaxies near each other — that is, come
less than about 150 000 light-years from one another — they can be reshaped by the oth-
er’s gravitational pull. Gas from the outer edges of galaxies can then funnel to the centre,
forming new stars.
This phenomenon takes place over millions of years, of course, so Betsy can’t watch it
happen. She can only infer that this is happening because so many galaxies that have oth-
er galaxies close by also have new stars in their centres. She has been using a group of
about 500 galaxies to study the effects of galaxy interaction. To study these galaxies, she Betsy Barton
gathers optical images as well as radio observations collected by the Very Large Array
telescope in New Mexico.
Are you interested in astronomy as a career?
• Talk to university or college professors to find out about careers in astronomy.
• Visit a planetarium to learn more about space.
• Conduct your own research on such topics as constellations, supernovae, galaxies, or comets and meteors.

TOPIC 5 Review
1. How did Karl Jansky know that some radio waves come from space?

2. Why are radio telescopes built so much larger than optical telescopes?

3. Explain the technique of interferometry.

4. Describe how very long base line interferometry works.

5. Thinking Critically If you wanted to build a radio telescope, would you

build it in a country with lots of rain, sunshine, or both? Would either
type of location affect the telescope’s ability to make accurate observa-
tions? Explain your answer.

www.mcgrawhill.ca/links/sciencefocus9
NASA has a program to develop and place telescopes into orbit
that use all of the electromagnetic windows — from radio waves to
gamma rays. Find out about one telescope program that is in opera-
tion. Go to the web site above, and click on Web Links to find
out where to go next. Make a poster or write a brief
report detailing your findings.

What Channel Is That? • MHR 397

 Wrap-up TOPICS 3-5

If you need to check an item, Topic numbers are provided in brackets below.

Key Terms
spectrum spectral analysis astronomical unit interferometry
spectroscope Doppler effect light-year very long baseline
spectral lines red shifted electromagnetic radiation interferometry

spectroscopy adaptive optics radio astronomy

diffraction grating triangulation radio object

Reviewing Key Terms Understanding Key Concepts

1. In your notebook, match the description in 2. What is a spectroscope? (3)
column A with the correct term in column B
3. How is an emission spectrum produced? How
A B is an absorption spectrum produced? (3)
• a series of closely • adaptive optics (4)
spaced lines that splits
4. How can the spectrum of a star tell us if it is
light into a spectrum approaching Earth? (3)
• all the various kinds of • Doppler effect (3) 5. What kind of material can radio waves pene-
radiant energy trate that light waves cannot? (5)
• telescope technology • radio astronomy (5)
that removes the 6. Thinking Critically How can larger tele-
effects of the atmosphere scopes give astronomers a more precise
picture of the distances to the nearest stars?
• when images from • light-year (4)
two radio telescopes
(4)
are combined using
7. Thinking Critically Television signals are
a computer
radio waves which travel at the speed of light.
• using radio waves to • spectroscopy (3) The first commercial TV broadcasts began
learn about the stars about 1950. How far have these radio waves
• the distance that light • diffraction grating (3) travelled in light-years? (5)
travels in one year
8. Apply In one year, light travels about
• one method to • electromagnetic radiation (5)
measure the distance
63 240 AU. Using this scale, look at the illus-
to the stars tration and state, in light years, how far away
star A is from the Sun. (4)
• helps to measure the • interferometry (5)
speed and direction of stars
• the scientific study of • triangulation (4)
spectra distance: 543 000 AU

star A the Sun

398 MHR • Space Exploration