Unlike any other disciplines in science, astronomy might seem particularly abstract to work with since it has a rather limited amount of object to deal with. Rather, a big part of astronomy relies on studying the energy coming from the outer space which is the basis of the cosmic exploration.
Astronomers break down these sources as much as they can to study them to reveal the fascination information about the energy revealing the energy source that leads to the birth of our galaxy. The major part of this study relies on the heavy technological tools such as giant telescopes orbiting above our atmosphere to various other telescopes on earth’s surface and other necessary tools and medium possible.
The importance of radio waves for the space exploration
At first with the radical changes in the modern technology, astronomers relied on telescope for optical observation. But with the new innovation, astronomers are now capable of tapping into various forces of energy coming from any source, giving astronomers golden goose opportunity to ripe and reap great source of information from the ground. One of these sources are various types of radiation coming from different objects located in the space.
One such forms of radiation frequently used by astronomers are Radio waves. Tapping and tuning into this energy, astronomers discovered magnificent information such as the most explosive events in the galaxy and most energetic objects floating in the space. Things like supernovas, massive magnetic whirlpool around the giant black hole to the radiation coming from the big bang of our universe are some of the discoveries made by the scientists who were dealing with radio waves.
On top of that ,one of the most fascinating pieces of news is the fact that with the help of such waves even the tiniest molecules in space can also be detected, which is pure indication of possibilities in life and plants in space.
The nature of radio waves
In length, radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the array of electromagnetic radiation, which covers all other wavelengths longer than 1 millimetre. The largest part of the radio waves can reach out to earth while wavelength longer than 100m are reflected back into the space by our ionosphere, which is the outer layer of our earth’s atmosphere. Scientists refer to this type of waves by the measure of tehir frequency cycle. This is the term used for the number of the wavelength passed with every second. It is crucial to understand that the shorter the wavelength is, the higher the frequency is.
How are radio waves used in practice?
To capture these waves and study them, radio telescopes are widely used by scientists. This is one piece of a large dish, which captures the radio waves coming on our earth, right when the wave hits the core of these large dish. Its antenna is similar to one of those old-school television antenna. This captures energy and it is then stored and sent to the computers to convert it into digital medium and into an image. How fascinating and tremendously powerful computers are out there!
The complications of the appliance of radio waves
Unfortunately, radio wave telescopes are more fuzzy than most optical telescopes, since the wavelengths are much longer than light waves. Now, fortunately, the solution to this was already made by the smartest scientists there. They have created a long array of several dishes of such a type to properly capture the whole length, and now these telescope arrays give out more sharper view than the giant Hubble Telescope orbiting the planet on the top of our atmosphere.
Great invention! Thanks to radio waves we are able to learn more about our universe