Scientific Inquiry of the Universe through Modern Technology
Author: |
Derek Dennis |
Level: |
Middle School |
Content Area: |
Science |
Posted March 2nd, 2010 by Admin
2.1 Introduction to Smiley
Supporting material
For all of Unit 2
For Unit 2.1
SMILEY
- "Smiley" is a 4.6m radio telescope located at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, or PARI.
- Smiley is remotely accessed via the internet to be used by teachers and students to introduce them to Radio Astronomy.
- Smiley is a real working radio telescope and not a simulation.
- After training students will be able access and utilize a real working radio telescope to conduct real world scientific investigations.
RADIO TELESCOPE OPERATIONAL BASICS
- A telescope is any device that makes an object look bigger than it is.
- Most are familiar with optical telescopes, which view the visible spectrum.
- Radio telescopes do the same as optical except they “look” at the radio spectrum.
- Radio telescopes are Astronomers “ears to the sky”.
- Smiley scoops up radio waves in a dish looking telescope.
- Radio telescopes catch radio waves in a dish looking antenna called a reflector.
- The reflector sends the signals up into the center of the dish called the focal point.
- The feed is comprised of a horn.
- The horn feeds the incoming signals to a sensitive radio receiver and amplifier.
- Lastly, the signals are sent to a computer for conversion from analog to digital data.
RADIO TELESCOPE SPECS.
- Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table. It contains one positively charged proton and one negatively charged electron.
- Normally the electron spins in the opposite direction in relation to the proton.
- When a hydrogen atom is hit by another atom, or an electron, the hydrogen’s electron is forced to flip into the same direction as the proton.
- Since the proton is positively charged and the electron is negative, they repel each other causing the electron to flip back into spinning into the opposite direction.
- When the electrons flip back energy is released in the form of a photon.
- The photon has a wavelength of 21cm or a frequency of 1.42 GHz.
- This Flip –Spin action identifies the presence of hydrogen.
- Smiley collects the emissions from neutral hydrogen to locate and study hydrogen.
- Since Hydrogen is the most abundant element, studying it gives us better insight into the Universe.
DATA ANALYSIS
- Data from Smiley is processed by a computer to be analyzed by three types of scanning.
- Spectrum Scanning measures the intensity of a radio emission’s frequency.
- Continuum Scanning measures the intensity of radio emissions over time.
- Mapping Scanning Collects the intensity of an emission over an area to generate a Map image of the source