Radio astronomy

Radio astronomy is the study of celestial phenomena through measurement of the characteristics of radio waves emitted by physical processes occurring in space. Radio waves are much longer than light waves. In order to receive good signals, radio astronomy requires large antennas, or arrays of smaller antennas all working together (The Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico is an example of this). Most telescopes use a parabolic dish to reflect the waves to a receiver which detects and amplifies the signal into usable data. This allows astronomers to see a strip of the radio sky. If they take multiple scans of overlaping strips of the sky they can piece together an image using a false color technique. Radio astronomy is a relatively new field of astronomical research that still has much more to be discovered.

Sources of radio emission

• Active galactic nucleii and pulsars have jets of charge particles which emit synchrotron radiation
• The Cosmic microwave background is blackbody radio emission