Community Enjoys Very Large Array Telescope Talk

Community Enjoys Very Large Array Telescope Talk

Thank you to Dr. Patricia Henning for her public lecture last night on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope. This talk was held at the Los Alamos SALA Event Center, with about 100 community members attending.

This talk is a part of the Your State of Science Series (YSoS), hosted by the New Mexico Consortium and ScienceFest/Los Alamos Mainstreet ,and brought to you in partnership with Zia Credit Union.

Henning is the lead of operations of the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and the Domenici Science Operations Center in Socorro, New Mexico. She spoke about the layout of the array and what kind of science it can achieve and then went over different science discoveries and mysteries astronomers have observed using the Very Large Array. She ended her talk by discussing the Next Generation radio telescope that they are planning to build and the kinds of exciting science they will be able to do in the future!  The lecture also featured a Q&A session where the audience asked many excellent questions.

After the lecture most of the attendees stayed for a viewing of the film Contact, which features the Very Large Array telescope. Dr. Henning discussed the making of the film from a scientific perspective, guiding the audience about what was science fiction versus science fact.

Thank you to all who attended!