Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI and Kristal Armendariz, Photographer

The Very Large Array consists of 27 radio antennas, each weighing 230 tons and reaching 82 feet in diameter. The array, in the desert south of Socorro, New Mexico, combines to give the resolution of a 22-mile-wide antenna to aid scientists in the search for frequencies of molecules in interstellar space. Scenes from the movie Contact were shot at the VLA site.

I thought Contact (written by Carl Sagan) was a cool movie, but nothing compared to the PBS series “Cosmos” that Carl Sagan put together to vividly explain the universe and all of its wonder.

Thought this was cool too: The melodic use of the notes C#, D#, E, are recurring audio punctuations in Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’, and also are used in key scenes of ‘Contact’. Notably when Dr. Arroway touches the then invisible interior of the space pod.

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Check out this animation of the planned construction of the next generation centimeter-wavelength radio telescope that is expected to be built by 2020.