Word: dishes
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...reflector of the world's biggest radio telescope is nothing more than a dish of chicken wire lining a 1,000-ft.-wide hole in the ground. Above it, three tall thin towers poke toward the sky. From the towers' tips, cables string out to suspend a tangle of girders over the center of the bowl. The complete contraption looks like the product of some errant giant playing with an outsize Erector set. But at its dedication in the hills south of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, last week, the great scope was tuned and ready-a sharp and farseeing...
Since the chicken-wire dish is firmly attached to the ground, it cannot be turned mechanically. But by changing the position of the dangling waveguide that feeds radio energy from above, it can be swung electronically 20° north or south of vertical. The rotation of the earth takes care of the east-west steering. Because the telescope's position is only 18° north of the equator, it can reach all the planets, for at that latitude they pass high overhead...
More interesting, though, are the non-military possibilities. Used as a telescope that receives incoming waves from elsewhere in the universe, the Arecibo dish will be enormously sensitive, concentrating the signals that fall on more than 18 acres. It will work best with radio waves about two feet long, but Dr. Gordon believes it will also pick up the important data-rich 21-cm. waves that come from hydrogen in the distant parts of the galaxy...
Connubial Cage. When the apes want to study the mating habits of humans, Mérou winds up sharing a cell with Nova, a delectable dish who looks like Brigitte Bardot but who troubles Mérou because her eyes show no sign of human intelligence. Mérou at first refuses to perform connubially for the apes. But when Nova is put in the cell opposite with another strapping human male, he finds himself clawing at the bars like an animal. The apes, reassured by this return to "human" behavior, restore Nova to him. "I must now admit...
Later in the summer the new antenna was used to measure the effective temperatures of someof the planets and to map the center of our galaxy at 5,000 megacycles. Operations ended in September, however, because rain water leaked into the equipment at the focus of the giant dish, and caused the receiver to mal-function. Once this equipment is made watertight, work at the station should proceed rapidly. Dr. Maxwells hopes to make extensive studies of individual sources of celestial radiation. With over 100 sources to be examined, the Harvard Radio Astronomy Station will not be idle during...