The Radio Telescope

A radio telescope looks very little to the average person like a telescope. The long tube, terminating in an eyepiece is nowhere present. However, the astute observer will see that the essentials are there. There is a concave reflecting device at the end and there is a point at which all the waves are concentrated to form an image. Only in this case it is radio waves that are concentrated rather than light waves.

The radio telescope is used primarilly for astronomy, looking at objects that don't emit or reflect enough light to be seen by the usual optical methods. It can also pick up radio waves that are sent from another source, hit an object and bounce back to the receiver. This is actually the same technology that was developed in World War II and became known as the radar.

Today, we see a form of the radio telescope everywhere around us. The satellite dish is really just a modified version of the radio telescope. Only in this case it picks up waves sent on purpose from a satellite in orbit around the earth.

Of course, the radio telescope has many military applications and has been used to search the galaxies for intelligent life. There are university laboratories trying to find patterns in the various waves that constantly bombard us from all points of the universe.

The radio signals picked up by the radio telescope are generally processed by a computer and can generate detailed images that can actually describe the surface area and composition of objects upon which they are directed.