The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) is located near

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, UK and is home to a number of the largest and most advanced

aperture synthesis Aperture synthesis or synthesis imaging is a type of interferometry that mixes signals from a collection of telescopes to produce images having the same angular resolution as an instrument the size of the entire collection. At each separation and ...

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

s in the world, including the

One-Mile Telescope The One-Mile Telescope at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO), Cambridge, UK is an array of radio telescopes (two fixed and one moveable, fully steerable parabolic reflectors operating simultaneously at 1407 MHz and 408 ...

, 5-km

Ryle Telescope The Ryle Telescope (named after Martin Ryle, and formerly known as the 5-km Array) was a linear east-west radio telescope array at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. In 2004, three of the telescopes were moved to create a compact two-dime ...

, and the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager. It was founded by the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and is part of the Cambridge University, Cavendish Laboratories, Astrophysics Department.

History

Radio interferometry started in the mid-1940s on the outskirts of

, but with funding from the

Science Research Council The Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and its predecessor the Science Research Council (SRC) were the United Kingdom, UK agencies in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities, including astronomy, biote ...

and a corporate donation of £100,000 from

Mullard Mullard Limited was a British manufacturer of electronics, electronic components. The Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd. of Southfields, London, was founded in 1920 by Captain Stanley R. Mullard, who had previously designed thermionic valves (US ...

Limited, a leading commercial manufacturer of

thermionic valve Thermionic emission is the liberation of charged particles from a hot electrode whose thermal energy gives some particles enough kinetic energy to escape the material's surface. The particles, sometimes called ''thermions'' in early literature, ar ...

s. Construction of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory commenced at Lords Bridge Air Ammunition Park, a few kilometres to the west of

. The observatory was founded under Martin Ryle of the Radio-Astronomy Group of the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

and was opened by Sir Edward Victor Appleton on 25 July 1957. This group is now known as the

Cavendish Astrophysics Group The Cavendish Astrophysics Group (formerly the Radio Astronomy Group) is based at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The group operates all of the telescopes at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory except for the 32m MERL ...

Location

The observatory is located a few miles south-west of Cambridge at Harlton on a former ordnance storage site, next to the disused Oxford-Cambridge Varsity railway line. A portion of the

track bed The track bed or trackbed is the groundwork onto which a railway track is laid. Trackbeds of disused railways are sometimes used for recreational paths or new light rail links. Background According to Network Rail Network Rail Limited is t ...

of the railway, running nearly east-west for several miles, was used to form the main part of the "5km" radio-telescope and the Cambridge Low Frequency Synthesis Telescope. Due to this, the reconstruction of the railway line between Oxford and Cambridge will follow a new alignment at this point.

Telescopes

Gallery

The following photographs (except for the last 2 items) were taken in June 2014:

References

Notes

Sources

Overview , Cavendish AstrophysicsMullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) on Google mapsSubterranea Britannica entry for Lords Bridge Forward Filling Depot (also Air Ammunition Park)Subterranea Britannica entry for Lords Bridge Station
{{Authority control Radio telescopes Astronomical observatories in England Buildings and structures in Cambridgeshire Cavendish Laboratory