Radio Astronomy

A research program aimed at attempting to determine the structure of our galaxy through a study of the great clouds of hydrogen which float in the Milky Way is soon to be initiated by the Harvard Observatory under the direction of Bart J. Bok and Harold I. Ewen. Plans have been announced for construction of a radio telescope at the Observatory’s Agassiz Station, and work on a twenty‐five‐foot parabolic reflector antenna and on housing for the necessary electronic and control gear is already in progress. Radiation from the hydrogen clouds (at a wavelength of 21 cm) was first discovered in 1951 by one of this year’s Nobel prize winners, Edward M. Purcell of the Harvard physics department, and by Dr. Ewen, now a research associate at the Observatory. A short time later confirmation was provided from Holland, where J. H. Oort and C. A. Muller detected the same radiation during observations made at the Kootwijk Radio Observatory. The Dutch scientists are reported to have in operation apparatus with which they have begun to trace the spiral structures in the remote parts of our galaxy. Similar research is also being carried out at the Radio Physics Laboratory in Sydney, Australia.

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