Grote Reber

Today is the birthday of radio astronomy pioneer Grote Reber, who was born in Chicago in 1911. He obtained a degree in electrical engineering from the Armour (now Illinois) Institute of Technology. Reber was an electronics and radio enthusiast who worked for several Chicago-based radio companies. His fascination with astronomy began when Karl Jansky announced the discovery of cosmic radio emission in 1932. Eager to explore signals from the stars, in 1937 he built a radio dish nearly 10 m in diameter beside his mother’s house. It was the world’s first radio telescope; the next one wouldn’t be built until after World War II. In 1939 Reber detected signals from the Milky Way, confirming Jansky’s discovery; four years later he detected radio emissions from the Sun. In the 1950s he moved to Hawaii and then Tasmania, Australia, where the atmosphere is sometimes transparent to long-wave radiation. Reber’s original backyard radio telescope is now located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory site in Green Bank, West Virginia. (Photo credit: NRAO/AUI)

Date in History: 22 December 1911