Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory

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This is a Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Contents 1 1930s 2 1940s 3 1950s 4 1960s 5 1970s 6 1980s 7 1990s 8 2000s 9 References 9.1 Books

[edit] 1930s

• 1939 – Jodrell Bank site purchased by the University of Manchester as a botany field station.^[1]

[edit] 1940s

• 1945 – December — Bernard Lovell arrives at Jodrell Bank with several trailers of radar equipment from World War II.^[2]
• 1947 – The 66 m Transit Telescope is constructed.^[3][4]

[edit] 1950s

• 1950 – August – The transit telescope is used to make the first detection of radio waves from the nearby Andromeda Galaxy.^[5][6]
• 1950 – Charles Husband presents first drawings of the proposed giant, fully-steerable radio telescope.^[7]
• 1952 – September – Construction of the Mark I telescope begins.^[8]
• 1957 – October – The Mark I telescope becomes operational. It tracks the carrier rocket of Sputnik 1; the only telescope in the West able to do so.^[9][10]

[edit] 1960s

• 1960 – May – Lord Nuffield pays the remaining debt on the Mark I and the observatory is renamed the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories.^[11]
• 1962 – As part of a radio-linked interferometer, the Mark I identifies a new class of compact radio sources, later recognised as quasars.^[12]
• 1962 – Jodrell Bank radio telescope is mentioned in the Science Fiction novel A for Andromeda by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.^{[citation needed]}
• 1964 – The Mark II telescope is completed.^[13]
• 1966 – The Mark I receives pictures from Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.^[14]
• 1966 – The Mark III telescope is completed.^[15]
• 1968 – The Mark I confirms the existence of pulsars.^[16]
• 1968 – The Mark I took part in the first transatlantic VLBI experiment in 1968, with other telescopes being those at Algonquin and Penticton in Canada.^[17]
• 1969 – The Mark I is used for the first time in a VLBI observation, with the Arecibo radio telescope in 1969.^[12]

[edit] 1970s

• 1970/1 – The Mark I is repaired and upgraded; it is renamed to the Mark IA.^[15]
• 1972/3 – The Mark I carries out a survey of radio sources; amongst these sources was the first gravitational lens, which was confirmed optically in 1979.^[18]
• 1976 – January – storms bring winds of around 90 mph which almost destroy the telescope. Bracing girders are added.^[19]

[edit] 1980s

• 1980 – The Mark IA is used as part of the new MERLIN array.^[12]
• 1982 – The 42ft telescope is built, to replace the 50ft.^{[citation needed]}
• 1986 – The first pulsar in a globular cluster is discovered.^[12]
• 1986 – The Mark II telescope is given a new surface that is accurate to 1/3 mm.^[13]
• 1987 – The Mark IA is renamed the Lovell Telescope after Bernard Lovell.^[20]

[edit] 1990s

• 1990 – The new 32 m Cambridge telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is added to the MERLIN array.^[12]
• 1992 – The MERLIN array becomes a national facility.^[12]
• 1993 – At the request of NASA, the Lovell Telescope searches for the Mars Observer spacecraft.^[21]
• 1998 – The Lovell Telescope begins participation with the SETI Project Phoenix^[22][23]

[edit] 2000s

• 2000 – February – The Lovell Telescope searches for NASA's Mars Polar Lander.^[24]
• 2000 – Placebo recorded the video for 'The Bitter End' at Jodrell Bank.^{[citation needed]}
• 2000/2 – The Lovell Telescope is resurfaced, increasing its sensitivity at 5 GHz by a factor of five.^{[citation needed]}
• 2003 – December – The Lovell Telescope searches for the Beagle 2 lander on Mars.^{[citation needed]}
• 2004 – January – Astronomers from Jodrell Bank, Australia, Italy and the US discover the first known double pulsar.^{[citation needed]}
• 2004 – Minor scenes for the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are filmed at Jodrell Bank.^{[citation needed]}
• 2005 – February – Astronomers using the Lovell Telescope discovered a galaxy that appears to be made almost entirely of dark matter.^[25]
• 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.^[26]
• 2006 – September – Jodrell Bank wins the BBC's online competition to find the UK's greatest 'Unsung Landmark'.^[27]

[edit] References

[edit] Books

• Lovell, Bernard (1968). Story of Jodrell Bank. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-217619-6 (hardback). 
• Lovell, Bernard (1973). Out of the Zenith: Jodrell Bank, 1957-70. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-217624-2 (hardback). 
• Lovell, Bernard (1985). The Jodrell Bank Telescopes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-858178-5 (hardback). 
• Lovell, Bernard (1990). Astronomer by Chance. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-55195-8. 

v • d • e Jodrell Bank Observatory Timeline · Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics · Jodrell Bank Observatory Telescopes Lovell Telescope · Mark II · Mark III · MERLIN · Tenerife Experiment · Very Small Array Directors Bernard Lovell · Francis Graham-Smith · Rod Davies · Andrew Lyne · Phil Diamond Engineers Charles Husband Astronomers Robert Hanbury Brown · Roger Clifton Jennison