Sunday, April 8, 2018

SCIENCE FICTION LOVERS TAKE NOTE

The guy with the cowboy hat is Allen, taking pictures
The VLA. The Very Large Array. A noted astronomical observatory. A science fiction lover’s dream. 

It’s a collection of 27 giant dish antennas, each with a dish face  82 feet in diameter. They are trained in unison skyward from the Plains of San Augustin, an ancient seabed 7,000 feet above sea level in New Mexico near nowhere.

They look into the universe and map it, one moon-sized piece at a time.

And we’re here. For an open house tour. Looking at them.
I read this: "Since the first observation in 1975, the Very Large Array has scanned the skies to learn cosmic secrets invisible to even the most powerful telescope. The VLA shows us the chaos caused by black holes, maps ice on the scorched planet Mercury, watches suns from inside their dusty gas cocoons, and even found a hole in the Universe billion light years around."

And it thrilled movie lovers in 1997 when “Contact” used the field of antennas as a backdrop for a message from space. All from the amazing mind of Carl Sagan.

Like I said. Science fiction. One truth at a time. My nerdy techno hubby Al Fasoldt thrills to be here.


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