DAY 10: Searching for E.T.
We unknowingly took a photo of a UFO once on the road. You can see a picture of it near the bottom of THIS PAGE.
Richard and Max are very interested in space. I used to work in the aerospace industry, for a company that made space shuttle and space station parts. Richard and Max are curious about stars and planets while my interest in space has more of a human-interest angle. I think looking at stars and planets is kinda boring…but I think it would be cool to see and meet some aliens.
On Thursday, Richard had us scheduled to go see the the world’s largest fully steerable single aperture radio antenna. Call me dumb but I thought we were going to see some big radio antenna that broadcast music or news on a global scale or something. Max seemed more educated about it than I was.
So, Dale, Rita, Max, Mason, Richard and I all piled in the van for a one-hour drive into the mountains somewhere in a remote area of West Virginia. I took my lap desk and got some emails answered. Rita tried to take a nap. Mason watched videos on my phone…until the cell signal died. Max was just happy to be there with Grampa and Rita. Richard was helping Dale interpret the GPS directions.
We came over one mountain pass when I just happened to glance up, and saw what looked like a HUGE white satellite dish in the distance. Wow! I mean, it was beyond huge, and so white, like something from a movie! NOW I was interested!
We finally arrived at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Green Bank. There were lots of large structures that resembled satellite dishes. We went inside, and were delighted that a tour was just about to begin. The tours are free and start on the hour, each hour. We watched an interesting video where they taught us what radio waves are (well, those of us who didn’t know) and how they use those to determine what types of materials make up certain objects in space. For example, they can use radio telescopes to determine that, say, a specific star is made of hydrogen. It got a bit technical and I’m admittedly a hands-on, concrete learner. When things get a bit abstract, my eyes start to glaze over. That’s why I was always so bad at math. Contrary to the topic of my post here, they don’t search for E.T. at this facility. A group in California does that.
Anyway, the video ended and a nice young lady, who was an EXCELLENT tour guide by the way, answered questions and then did a couple of experiments. One involved putting a balloon in liquid nitrogen. The kids thought that was sooo cool (and so did I). When she was finished, she “dumped” the liquid nitrogen on the carpet and it instantly turned to gas. I could feel the cold on my ankles. That was neat, too. She went into great detail about how bad it is to use digital cameras and other electronics near the antenna. Scientists from all over the world submit proposals to a committee and they decide who gets to use the telescope. They then schedule each team on a specific day and for a specific period of time. They may get in 7 experiments per day. She explained that if one person used their digital camera too close to the telescope, or even a wireless Internet device inside the 10-mile safe zone, it could ruin the results of an experiment that a scientist had spent his whole life working toward. Needless to say, we kept our digital cameras and everything else off after we got inside the gates on the bus. You can see pictures I shot outside of the gates HERE and HERE.
When we were there, it was maintenance day and there were men literally hanging from the telescope, waaaay up high. One of them waved at all of us. The boys thought that was neat. Max asked the tour guide how the men got up there (there’s a type of elevator) and how they protected themselves from falling (they’re tethered). There were other radio telescopes there, too, including the one Grote Reber built in his backyard in 1937 after applying for, but not getting, a job at Bell Labs.
After the tour, we had to hit the gift shop, of course. We then drove back to Elkins. Grampa took Max and Mason to McDonalds. We never take them there (we stopped eating there after watching Fast Food Nation) so it was a big treat for them. We then drove to Hickory House Restaurant and had some delicious barbecue.
Back at the campground, we roasted marshmallows AGAIN. My diet starts…NEXT week.