Mississauga Astronomical Society

                Twentysecond Meeting

                Speaker’s Night

Day:                Friday, May 28, 2004

Speaker:     Richard Jarrell

Big Science in a Small Country: The Origins of Radio Astronomy in Canada

Dr. Richard Jarrell, Ph.D. Professor of Natural Science at York University, and a member of the Canadian Astronomical Society, described the evolution of radio astronomy in Canada.

The development of radio astronomy, or astronomy done at radio wavelengths, has diverged between Canada and the United States. In Canada, radio astronomy expanded from humble beginnings in the 1950’s, then almost died with the cutoff of funds, and now is having somewhat of a resurgence.

The term “big science” popularized by Derek deSolla Price in the 1950’s refers to large scale post-World War 2 science with large budgets (tens or hundreds of millions of dollars), large scientific staffs and vast facilities.  Atomic energy with Brookhaven in 1947 is the first federal government facility to be funded. In 1948 the first non-military nuclear reactor was established. Rocket development in the 1950’s and the space program of the 1960’s continued the big science projects.

Carl Jansky first noted radio waves from space in 1932 but astronomers showed no interest. By 1939, only one person, Grote Reber, was pursuing radio astronomy with home made equipment in Illinois.  After World War 2, small groups in Manchester (Bernard Lovell) and Cambridge (Martin Ryle) U.K. decided to pursue radio astronomy. Australia also decided to focus on radio astronomy in a big way rather than pursue other fields. In America an early academic centre in Cornell University and the National Research Lab in Washington D.C. gradually took up the field. In 1954 a national radio observatory was established (the NRAO).

The first work in Canada took place at the National Research Centre (NRC) in Ottawa, with 300 workers in 1939 and 3000 by the end of the war. Arthur Covington, a physics major began to work on “cosmic noise” in 1946. He scrounged around for parts without funding and built a small system to monitor 10.7 cm solar noise. By 1947 he was monitoring the solar flux daily; these became valuable observations because no one else was doing this. At The Goth Hill Observatory, where this work was being done, interferometry was developed to improve resolution from 10 degrees to minutes of arc. 

The Dominion Observatory (D.O.) in Ottawa, meanwhile, in 1947 hired Peter Millman who combined visual meteor observations with radar detection. By triangulation, velocity and angles could be calculated. This work was important during the IGY of 1957-58.

By 1956, astronomers finally accepted radio astronomy. Both the DO and NRC decided to build radio observatories at Penticton (opening as the DRAO in 1960 and training people to observe at the 21 cm line) and Algonquin Park (also opening in 1960 for solar work and later for general radio astronomy), respectively. At the high tide for radio astronomy in Canada in 1967 there were two national observatories in Canada studying supernova remnants, interstellar molecules and conducting VLBI (very large baseline interferometry) experiments for the first time ever in the world.  After this, Canadian astronomy began to run into trouble, first with the cancellation of the telescope on Mt. Kobau, then by budget cuts in the 1970’s. The D.O. was closed down and radio astronomy transferred to the NRC. The Alqonquin Radio Observatory shut down the solar array after years of daily observations. Radio astronomy now had to compete with optical astronomy for funding. The Canada France Hawaii telescope opened for optical astronomers in the 1970’s but radio astronomers failed to get funding for VLBI.

By the early 1990’s, in order to pursue millimeter astronomy, Canada bought into the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. Together with funding for participation in the Gemini project, the new scenario evolved wherein Canada and other countries began to participate in big projects.

At present, Canada is a partner in the JCMT, is developing space VLBI with Russia, is a key mover in the Square Km Array, and is a participant in ALMA. Astronomers are now shifting from technique-orientation to problem solving (e.g. using all wavelengths and modalities). Although the ARO closed completely in 1991, the DRAO is still fuctioning and may survive by doing good science cheaply, by specializing and by developing partnerships.    

Dr. Jarrell, in summary, stated that small countries cannot do everything but must specialize and that international partnership is the key to the future.

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to M.A.S. meeting reports page
Mississauga Astronomical Society