The Tenerife Experiment was a Cosmic Microwave Background (
CMB
In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space ...
) experiment built by
Jodrell Bank
Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astro ...
(then known as the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories) of the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...
in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (
IAC). It was the first CMB experiment to be installed and run at the
Observatorio del Teide
Teide Observatory ( es, Observatorio del Teide), IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at , located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It becam ...
in
Tenerife
Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the Archipelago, archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitant ...
,
starting operations in October 1984,
and running with various upgrades and additional experiments until 2000.
It measured anisotropy of the CMB on angular sizes of 5 degrees, about the size of the upper half of the constellation of
Orion (from the "belt" to the "shoulders"). To reduce receiver instability, it performed fast
Dicke Switching Dicke is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Amie Dicke (born 1978), Dutch artist
* Finn Dicke (born 2004), Dutch footballer
* Pien Dicke (born 1999), Dutch field hockey player
* Robert H. Dicke (1916–1997), American physici ...
between two horns separated by 8 degrees. To remove long term drifts and atmospheric variations, it used a further switch of 8 degrees using a flat mirror in front of the horns.
References
{{Jodrell Bank Observatory
Jodrell Bank Observatory
Radio telescopes
Cosmic microwave background experiments