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Aug 26, 2023

Green Bank team heads to Arctic Circle

Aug 26, 2023 GREEN BANK — Five Green Bank Observatory employees have temporarily traded the lush green woods of Pocahontas County for the Arctic Circle, traveling to Norway to gather parts from a

Aug 26, 2023

GREEN BANK — Five Green Bank Observatory employees have temporarily traded the lush green woods of Pocahontas County for the Arctic Circle, traveling to Norway to gather parts from a decommissioned telescope.

The team will bring the parts back home to be used in the Green Bank 20-meter telescope, which is used by thousands of students each year for teaching and research. The parts will keep the Green Bank 20-meter operational, as there currently are no spare parts for it at the observatory.

The five-member team from Green Bank includes associate scientist Will Armentrout, scientific data analyst Brenne Gregory, electrician Anthony Nucilli, telescope mechanic Edgar Friel and works area division head Adam Taylor.

The group left Aug. 14 to travel to what Green Bank officials call “the northernmost settlement in the world,” Ny-�…lesund, Svalbard. It took three days for the team to arrive in the Artic Circle.

The Ny-�…lesund 20-meter telescope was built in the early 1990s as part of a partnership between NASA and Norway, Green Bank officials said.

By Aug. 18, the Green Bank team was on site in Norway, and working on removing two sets of panels from the antenna surface, and cataloging dozens of spare telescope parts.

Soon after arriving, the team also took a polar bear safety course, and celebrating the Ny-�…lesund 20-meter telescope with a party with Kartverket staff.

The Ny-�…lesund telescope’s last day of service was Aug. 14.

The Green Bank team will leave Ny-�…lesund on Thursday, and will be back in Pocahontas County a few days after that. Updates on their work and trip are available on the Green Bank Observatory Facebook page.

On Oct. 17, 1957 the groundbreaking and dedication of the Green Bank Observatory took place. Within one year the first telescope on site was completed, the 85-foot Tatel Telescope. Over the course of the next 10 years a total of five telescopes were place on site, ranging in size from 40 to 300 feet in diameter. An additional number of test instruments had also been built, including Little Big Horn, and a calibration instrument built down the side of a hill.

Over the past 60 years a number of new telescopes have been built at the site, including the Robert C. Byrd

Green Bank Telescope, a fully steerable telescope which operates from 0.2 GHz through 116 GHz and is the premiere telescope operating across those wavelengths.

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