Recent advances in radio astronomy

Although it is still in its infancy, the science of radio astronomy is providing many techniques for gaining invaluable information about the universe In 1931 Karl G. Jansky, a radio engineer at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J., discovered radio waves of extraterrestrial origin while studying the direction of arrival of thunderstorm static at 20 Mc/s with a rotating beam antenna.¹ This event is of historical significance because it marked the birth of the science of radio astronomy.