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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center set up by the United States National Science Foundation for the purpose of radio astronomy. NRAO designs, builds, and operates its own high-power radio telescopes for use by scientists around the world.
Charlottesville, Virginia NRAO headquarters is located on the University of Virginia grounds. The North American ALMA Science Center and the NRAO Technology Center are also located in Charlottesville. Green Bank, West Virginia NRAO is the constructor/owner of the world's largest fully mobile radio telescope, the Green Bank Telescope, which resides in Green Bank, West Virginia. Green Bank is the center of the United States national radio quiet zone, which NRAO is also responsible for maintaining. It resides on a 13,000 square mile piece of land void of electromagnetic pollution. The land was set aside by the Federal Communications Commission in 1958, as a Radio Quiet Zone; the area closest to the telescope is free of fixed radio transmitters, and all other fixed radio transmitters (TV and radio towers) inside the zone are required to transmit away from the telescope, often at limited power. It is hard to keep the site free of radio pollution. To aid in limiting outside interference, the surrounding area is planted with pines characterized by needles of a certain length as to 'block' electromagnetic interference at the wavelengths used by the observatory. At one point, the observatory faced the problem of North American flying squirrels tagged with US Fish & Wildlife Service telemetry transmitters. Electric fences and other radio wave emitters have caused great trouble for the astronomers in Green Bank. The observatory contains many other notable telescopes, including three 85 foot telescopes forming an interferometer array, a 40 foot telescope used by school groups and organizations for small scale research, a fixed radio 'horn' built to observe Cygnus X-1, a bunk house to facilitate these guests, as well as a reproduction of the original antenna built by Karl Jansky while he worked for Bell Labs to detect the interference that was discovered to be previously unknown natural radio waves emitted by the universe. Socorro, New Mexico
Tucson, Arizona Offices are located on the University of Arizona campus. Formerly operated the 12 Meter Telescope on Kitt Peak. NRAO suspended operations at this telescope and funding was rerouted to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) instead. The Arizona Radio Observatory now operates the 12 Meter Telescope. Santiago, Chile The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) site in Chile is at 5000 m altitude near Cerro Chajnantor in northern Chile. This is about 40 km east of the historic village of San Pedro de Atacama, 130 km southeast of the mining town of Calama, and about 275 km ENE of the coastal port of Antofagasta. | ||||||||||
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