• Question: what is a radio telescope

    Asked by Chloe to Anna, George, Jodi, Rob, Stefan on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Luwilcyson.
    • Photo: Anna Scaife

      Anna Scaife answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Hey Chloe – a radio telescope is a device that collects radio waves. Radio waves are just a different wavelength of light to the kind collected by optical telescopes. Their different because they’re bigger (they have a longer wavelength) so you need a bigger telescope to collect them. We build big dishes out of metal to reflect them into a collector – just like you would use a mirror in an optical telescope.

      They let us see lots of things that optical telescopes can’t see 🙂

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