How did radio astronomy get started?
The first radio astronomy observations were made in 1932 by the Bell Labs physicist Karl Jansky who detected cosmic radio noise from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy while investigating radio disturbances interfering with transoceanic telephone service. A few years later, the young radio engineer and amateur radio operator, Grote Reber (W8GFZ) built the first radio telescope (image at left) at his home in Wheaton, Illinois, and found that the radio radiation came from all along the plane of the Milky Way and from the Sun. During the 1940s and 1950s, Australian and British radio scientists were able to locate a number of discrete sources of celestial radio emission. They associated these sources with old supernovae and active galaxies, which later became to be known as radio galaxies. The construction of ever larger antenna systems and radio interferometers (see radio telescopes), improved radio receivers and data-processing methods have allowed radio astronomers to study fainter radi
