Latest news with #GreenBankTelescope
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
WVU students win second place in international Mars rover competition
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — A team of West Virginia University (WVU) students took home second place in an international competition over the weekend to build 'next generation' Mars rovers and test them in the field. This year, the University Rover Challenge (URC) brought together 114 teams from 15 countries to compete at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, which has terrain similar to the real Martian surface. According to a press release from WVU's Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, this is the third year in a row where WVU's Team Mountaineers' placed in the top two, following a second-place finish in 2024 and a first-place finish in 2023. Professor Yu Gu, the team's faculty advisor, said in the release that the team focused its efforts on 'refining last year's knowledge while fixing key issues.' 'This year, under the outstanding leadership of [Connor Mann] and [Jalen Beeman], the students represented WVU well against teams from around the world,' Gu said. 'This real-world engineering experience is what makes robotics competition an invaluable educational experience for students.' EXCLUSIVE: An up close look at the Green Bank Telescope The competition judges the performance of a team's rover through four different 'missions': science, delivery, equipment servicing and autonomous navigation. Teams performed tasks like analyzing soil for signs of microbial life, delivering samples and navigating difficult terrain. 'The most rewarding part was seeing our hard work and dedication pay off when stacked against the best in the world,' Jalen Beeman said, a team leader and computer science and electrical engineering student at WVU. 'Robotics is hard, so we've also been trying to lower the barrier for entry to the competition by open-sourcing our designs. At the competition, we had the chance to speak to several teams that used our designs which was very rewarding.' To read the full release on Team Mountaineers' finish at this year's URC competition, visit the WVU website, or go here to learn more about the University Rover Challenge. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
EXCLUSIVE: An up close look at the Green Bank Telescope
GREEN BANK, (WBOY) — In May, 12 News took a special tour of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Green Bank Telescope (GBT), the largest fully-steerable radio telescope in the world. At 485 feet tall with a 2.3-acre dish, the NSF Green Bank Telescope weighs 17 million pounds, or about 8,500 tons. But why does the GBT need to be so big in the first place and why is the fact that it's 'fully steerable' such a big deal? Green Bank Observatory software engineer Nathaniel Sizemore explained the dish on the telescope is like 'a giant bucket.' 'The bigger the dish, the more signal we can collect and the better chances we have of finding the signal we're looking for,' Sizemore said. But size isn't GBT's only advantage. The fact that it's fully steerable means that it can point to just about any target in the night sky, and can even track objects for multiple hours during extended observations. This is especially useful for observations on things like pulsars, where scientists are trying to make multiple precise time measurements during a single observation. GBT's large size, paired with its ability to track objects, is what makes the telescope so valuable to scientists. In some cases, it's the only telescope capable of making certain observations, like when the telescope was used to look for liquid oceans in Jupiter's orbit. 'The only one that can': Green Bank Telescope to search for liquid oceans in our solar system 'Between the size of the antenna and the fact that we can track that source for hours at a time, theoretically horizon to horizon if we wanted to, we can give [scientists] that data and let them get enough signal to then process that and do the science that they want to do,' Sizemore said. Former West Virginia Black Bear makes MLB debut for Pittsburgh Moving such a massive telescope requires equally massive machinery. The telescope rests on 16 wheels on a circular track, giving it 360 degrees of rotation. Further up is a large arc-like structure that acts as a hinge and counterweight, letting the telescope tilt back and forth. Although the telescope is movable, there are several safety measures to make sure no one is on top of the telescope while it is in motion. Radios are used to notify the control room when people move onto and off the telescope, and each person attaches a safety key near the entrance to the telescope to physically stop it from moving while anyone is aboard. The telescope also has a second manual lock along the arc, which has gaps scientists can use to keep the telescope in a specific orientation. Although you could take the stairs if you wanted, a pair of elevators on the telescope are used to carry people and scientific instruments up and down the GBT. The first one starts at the ground level and goes halfway up, close to the main dish of the telescope. A second elevator begins at the bottom of the telescope's arm and at the top of the GBT. The second-highest level of the telescope is the main reflector dish level. There, maintenance workers can access the underside of the dish using narrow catwalks below the reflective panels that make up the telescope. Using multiple smaller panels instead of a single reflective dish makes maintenance on the telescope cheaper and easier. For example, if a panel at the center of the dish is damaged and a spare isn't on hand, a panel from the edge of the dish can be used to replace it. Using lots of smaller panels has another benefit as well; hundreds of actuators underneath the dish can be used to make small adjustments to individual panels. This means that instead of moving the entire telescope, the panels themselves can be moved to fine-tune the telescope's orientation. North central West Virginia athletes win 26 events at State Track Meet At the very top, just below the telescope's sub-reflector, is where the telescope's instruments are kept. At the time of our visit, all the observation equipment had been removed from the telescope in preparation for an upcoming repainting project in June. Normally, the telescope can freely switch between different measuring tools, like a microscope switching between different magnifying lenses. Unsurprisingly, the top of the telescope also has some of the best views of any level on the GBT. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The real locations behind West Virginia's appearance in ‘Captain America: Brave New World'
CLARKSBURG, (WBOY) — Although reviews are mixed on the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, West Virginians might have been surprised to see their home state make an appearance in 'Captain America: Brave New World.' This article contains minor spoilers about the driving plot of 'Captain America: Brave New World,' but will not spoil any of the movie's big reveals. 'Captain America: Brave New World,' focuses on Sam Wilson, the newly-minted Captain America, and his friend Joaquin Torres, who recently stepped in to fill the now-vacant role of the Falcon. Following an assassination attempt on the newly-elected President Thaddeus Ross, Wilson and Torres begin searching for the person behind the plot to kill the president. Eventually, their search leads them to a location known as 'Camp Echo One,' which Wilson points out is situated in a secluded location in West Virginia. As Captain America and the Falcon approach the facility, the camera pans to a sign on the side of the road that says the two are entering a radio quiet zone, exactly like West Virginia's real-life National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ). Two large radio telescopes are prominent features of Camp Echo One, and Wilson comments on this during the movie, saying the radio telescopes must be a front for something more secretive. The two telescopes bear a striking resemblance to the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope at the U.S. National Science Foundation's Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and are no doubt a nod to the world's largest steerable radio telescope. How does Green Bank get snow off its telescope? However, there is another government facility in the NRQZ that could be a better comparison to the secretive Camp Echo One installation—the Sugar Grove Research Station in Pendleton County. Sugar Grove Research Station, previously known as Sugar Grove U.S. Naval Radio Station or the Navy Information Operations Command Sugar Grove, was a communications research and development base for the U.S. Navy and other government agencies, according to the West Virginia Encyclopedia. Because of this, very little public information exists online about the Sugar Grove station except that the Navy ceased operations at the site in 2015, though the National Security Agency (NSA) still operates part of the facility. According to the WV Encyclopedia, the nature of the facility was revealed as part of Edward Snowden's controversial leaking of government documents in 2013, which revealed a large-scale surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens was being carried out by the U.S. government; for years, the site was allegedly being used to monitor satellite communications and cell phone traffic. Today, the Sugar Grove campus appears to still be for sale by the Sugar Grove LLC. According to the property website, the Sugar Grove Station campus features housing for up to 400 residents, sports fields and courts, a swimming pool, a water treatment facility, a water tower, surveillance equipment like CCTV cameras and security checkpoints, administration buildings, a police and fire station, a youth activity center and even a bowling alley. A map of the facility and labels of each building are available on the property website, along with interior pictures of many of the site's buildings. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
