Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory

This is a Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Observations at Jodrell Bank in 1945. Credit: Jodrell Bank.

1939 – Jodrell Bank site purchased by the University of Manchester.
1945 – Bernard Lovell arrives at Jodrell Bank with several trailers of radar equipment from WW2.
1947 – The 66 m Transit Telescope is constructed.
1949 – The transit telescope is used to make the first detection of radio waves from the nearby Andromeda Galaxy.

The Mark 1 under construction. Credit: Jodrell Bank.

1950 – Charles Husband presents first drawings of the proposed giant, fully-steerable radio telescope.
1952 – Construction of the Mark I telescope begins
1957 – The Mark I telescope becomes operational. It tracks the carrier rocket of Sputnik 1; the only telescope in the West able to do so.

1960 – Lord Nuffield pays the remaining debt on the Mark I and the observatory is renamed the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories.
1962 – As part of a radio-linked interferometer, the Mark I identifies a new class of compact radio sources, later recognised as quasars.
1962 – Jodrell Bank radio telescope is mentioned in the Science Fiction novel A for Andromeda by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.
1964 – The Mark II telescope is completed.
1966 – The Mark I receives pictures from Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.
1966 – The Mark III telescope is completed.
1968 – The Mark I confirms the existence of pulsars.
1969 – The Mark I is used for the first time in a VLBI observation.

1970/1 – The Mark I is repaired and upgraded; it is renamed to the Mark IA.
1976 – January – storms bring winds of around 90 mph which almost destroy the telescope. Bracing girders are added.
1979 – The first gravitational lens is discovered by the Mark IA.

1990 – The new 32 m Cambridge telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is added to the MERLIN array.
1992 – The MERLIN array becomes a national facility.
1993 – At the request of NASA, the Lovell Telescope searches for the Mars Observer spacecraft.
1998 – The Lovell Telescope begins participation with the SETI Project Phoenix

The Lovell telescope mid-resurfacing. Credit: Jodrell Bank.

2000 – February – The Lovell Telescope searches for NASA's Mars Polar Lander
2000 – Placebo recorded the video for 'The Bitter End' at Jodrell Bank.
2000/2 – The Lovell Telescope is resurfaced, increasing its sensitivity at 5 GHz by a factor of five.
2003 – December – The Lovell Telescope searches for the Beagle 2 lander on Mars.
2004 – January – Astronomers from Jodrell Bank, Australia, Italy and the US discover the first known double pulsar.
2004 – Minor scenes for the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are filmed at Jodrell Bank.
2005 – February – Astronomers using the Lovell Telescope discovered a galaxy that appears to be made almost entirely of dark matter.
2005 – March – Jodrell Bank becomes the centre of the World's largest scale model of the Solar System as part of the Spaced Out project.
2006 – September – Jodrell Bank wins the BBC's online competition to find the UK's greatest 'Unsung Landmark'.

[edit] References