Who says looking at radio telescopes is boring? This is the Very Large Array in New Mexico known world wide as the VLA. It was used extensively in the book and movie Contact, a story by Carl Sagan. It's an array of 27 radio "dishes" that are each 25 meters in diameter. The antennas are arranged in a giant "Y" shape with nine antennas along each arm of the Y. The spacing between each antenna can be adjusted. In the largest configuration each arm of the Y is 13 miles long. This photograph shows all nine antennas of the northward arm with the sun very low in the west. Photograph by Rick Scott.
Updated: 21 July 2002