G oldstoneA ppleV alleyR adioT elescope

GAVRT IS:

A partnership involving NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and The Lewis Center.★An opportunity for students and teachers to join scientists on an interactive science/education team.★An opportunity for students to control 34-meter radio telescopes that were part of NASA’s Deep Space Network.

Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) islocated in the Mojave Desert, 40 miles north of Barstow in the area of the Fort Irwin military base.The telescopes we use are 34 meter diameter dishesthat had been used by NASA to communicate with robotic space probes for over 30 years.

In 1994, NASA decided to decommissionDSS-12,our first radio telescope, so Mr. Piercy, along with the help of other professionals, had a visionfor obtaining the radio telescope to beused by students everywhere to experience “real” science. He “thought”he would be able to pick it up in his truck. Little did he know that it is a 850,000 lb., 10 story high structure.

Radio Astronomy is just like optical astronomy exceptthat a radio telescope “sees” radio waves, while anoptical telescope sees ordinary light.Examples of “radio” in everyday use:

Mobile PhoneMicrowave OvensComputer WirelessGPS Position Finding

PAST GAVRT MISSIONS:

CASSINI – HUYGENS

URANUS CAMPAIGN

MARS GSSR –Roverlanding site

LCROSS – MOON MISSION

GAVRT students world-wideparticipated in observing LCROSS crash into the moon to confirm thepresence of water.

Current Missions:

JUPITER QUEST

Jupiter is thelargest planet inour Solar System.By “taking Jupiter’stemperature” wecan gather data tohelp solve it’s many planetmysteries.

(For this mission, go to slides 13 - 20)

JUNO MISSION:

Launched in August2011, it will arriveto orbit JupiterIn 2016.

GAVRT will provide data from past missions, as well

as observations whenJuno arrives at

Jupiter.

Students looking for RadioSignals from Life in OuterSpace.Join Dr. Steve Levin in scanning the celestialsky in search of radio signals from aliencivilizations!(for this mission, go to slides 21 - 27)

SETI: SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIALINTELLIGENCE

BLACK HOLE PATROL!

Scientists, such asDr. Jauncey of Australia,study quasars toaccumulate data onhow they flunctuate orchange over time. Bystudying the radio emissions they giveoff, it’s like looking backinto time as to how theUniverse was formed.

(for this mission, go to slides # 28 - 39)

If your eyes could see radio waves, Jupiter would look like this:

With our radio telescope, this is what we see:

POWER

POWER "ON SOURCE"

0.100

BACKGROUND POWER

0.050 0 .050 .100

POINTING OFFSET (DEGREES)

Scanning the telescope across Jupiter

“baseline”“baseline”

With our radio telescope, this is what we see: see:

POWER

POWER "ON SOURCE"

0.100

BACKGROUND POWER

0.050 0 .050 .100

POINTING OFFSET (DEGREES)

Scanning the telescope across Jupiter

“baseline”

Spacecraft tracks

Education and Science• Students contribute to Juno science - Modeling the radiation environment - Providing context for Microwave Radiometer data• Juno science lessons (in and out of the classroom)• Juno scientists participate in GAVRT teacher training• Juno scientists in the (GAVRT) classroom• Future plans (Junocam)

The Juno/GAVRT Connection

page.

GAVRT data help us understand Jupiter’s radiation belts

Synchrotron Beaming Curve (GAVRT Data)

18

GAVRT data provide context

Suppose every star has planets.Suppose life develops in every planetary system.Suppose an intelligent civilization develops everywhere there’s life.Suppose every intelligent civilization sends radio signals towards us.Suppose the average time from planet formation to radio signals is a billion years.Suppose the average civilization keeps sending radio signals for 1000 years.Then we would still have to look at a million stars to find one signal !

There are roughly 100 billion stars in our Galaxy, so “one in a million” should happen 100,000 times !

The Bad News

The Good News

• We want to survey a lot of stars !• We want to cover a lot of different frequencies.• We want to look for the weakest signals we can reliably see.• We want to make progress within a few years.• We can’t afford to get swamped by our own radio interference.• We want to look at each star many times.

• Survey the galactic plane (where most of the stars are).• Cover hundreds of millions of frequencies all at once.• Use a big telescope, with a sensitive receiver.• Keep the telescope constantly moving.• Students identify candidates and reject the radio interference.• Simple, repetitive scans, chosen by the students and teachers.

Goals

Plan

The Skyframe: A SETI Racetrack

The telescope scans a patch of sky by steadily following this pattern.

The telescope “sees” a spot on the sky which is bigger than the line spacing, so a real signal could more than once, with just the right timing.

The Waterfall Plot

Vertical lines are interference. Bright dots are candidates.

You will:• Pick a patch of sky (“skyframe”) to observe• Run the telescope and make it scan your skyframe• Use a waterfall plot to reject interference signals• Look for candidates which just might be real signals from

intelligent aliens• Send us your list of candidates and interferers, and tells

us what to improve for next time• Compare candidate reports to see if any candidates

showed up twice in the same skyframe.

SETI ANALYSIS

Date School Teacher

DOY Local time starts Filename

Frame number Galactic coordinates: Latitude Longitude

Center Frequency (MHz)8430

A. Interference (RFI) data

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec)

1

2

3

4

5

B. Possible Instrumental noise or Interference

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec)

1

2

3

4

5

C. Candidates

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time Power (aprox)

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec) (dB)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

SETI ANALYSIS

Date 5/24/13 School St. Mary's School Teacher Holly Bensel

DOY 144 Local time starts 18:17 Filename spc 00511_20130524_111708

Frame number: Galactic coordinates: Latitude Longitude

1 Interference (RFI) data

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec)

1 170.0244 170.0245 0 3600 too long on

2 70.02441 70.02442 0 3600 too long on

3 169.975586 169.97587 0 3600 too long on

4 170.024 170.025 0 3600 too long on

5

2 Possible Instrumental noise or Interference

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec)

1

2

3

4

5

6

3 Candidates

NumberStart Freq. End Freq. Start time End time Power (aprox)

Comments(MHz) (MHz) (sec) (sec) (dB)

1 55.103078 55.103079 2821 2822.2 color scale 3.0-5.0 it is about a 4.2

2 103.441371 103.441371 319 320 3-4 color scale looks white

3 124.1451 124.1451 1651 1651.4 3.5-4 color scale looks yellow

4 20.579 20.58 1761 1764 color scale 3.5-4 it is about a 4

5 20.584 20.585 1741 1744 color scale 3.5-4 it is about a 4

6 28.68 28.68 30 31

7

8

9

10

11

Black Hole Patrol

Students will measure how quasars change. As part of the Black Hole Patrol, you will measure the radio intensity of a sample of quasars.

The Black Hole patrol will measure the same set of quasars every week for a year, to watch how they vary.

We will publish the results as a scientific paper in an astronomy journal.

BLACK HOLE PATROL(Formerly QVS Mission)