Category Archives: 95-Alburqueque, NM

95-Alburqueque, NM

We visited the VLA – Very Large Array – 27 huge radio telescopes that see to the furthest reaches of the universe

While in the Albuquerque area we drove to the VLA.  It’s a site of 27 huge radio telescopes out in a flat desert area that is used by various scientists and groups to receive radio signals from the furthest reaches of the universe.  Each of the 27 telescopes is pointed at the exact same spot in space and the 27 act as 1 huge dish to receive and amplify the radio signals.

The VLA is not used to listen for alien signals, rather it’s used to get information about black holes, pulsars, nebulea and other cosmic bodies.  Anyone can request some time from the VLA, you just submit a proposal with scientific information about why you want to point at a specific place in the universe, and if your request is granted the telescopes will gather information from your specific place for a period of a few hours and send you the data.

The VLA telescopes are set up in three rows that point in three different directions.  They are set on tracks, so they can be moved along the three directional arms.  There are four configurations that are used, in one the telescopes are as far apart from each other as possible, in one they are close together as possible, and the other two are in between.  When we visited it was in the “B” configuration, which means the telescopes were pretty far from each other.

Here are some websites with information and videos about the VLA:

 

Here are some pictures (the one with flowers was taken off a postcard).  In the postcard picture the telescopes are in the configuration where they are as close together as possible.  In the closeup picture you can see people near the telescope to get a scope of how big each one is!

95-Alburqueque, NM

We hiked around some small volcano cones near Albuquerque

Just west of the city of Albuquerque and near the Petroglyph National Monument are three small volcano cones.  There’s a hiking trail that takes you past all three and up to the top of two.  We decided to do this hike one morning before it got too hot.

The volcanos are about 130,000 years old and came up through a long rift that parallels the Rio Grande river (which runs right through the city).  There is very little vegetation on these three cones so it’s real easy to see the formation and rocks.

Here are some pictures:

95-Alburqueque, NM

We saw some interesting petroglyphs just outside Alburqueque

We’re here in Alburqueque, NM for a visit, and we found an area with lot of petroglyphs very close to the city.  It’s the Petroglyph National Monument.  The areas with the petroglyphs are based around some volcanos where the volcanic rock spilled down the hillsides in huge chunks and the ancestral Puebloans found that by scraping off the top layer of black on the rocks it would expose a lighter shade underneath.  This is how they formed the petroglyphs.  Modern Puebloans have reviewed a lot of the petroglyphs but aren’t sure what the meaning of most of them area.  We took a 1-1/2 mile hike through an area with hundreds of petroglyphs and took lots of pictures.  Here are some: