PHYS 4112 – Principles of Radio Astronomy (Fall 2025)
Do you want to explore the fascinating world of radio waves and learn how radio telescopes unlock the mysteries of stars, galaxies, and cosmic phenomena? Are you curious about how radio telescopes work and eager to operate one? If so, this is the course for you!
Course Description: Introduces the fundamentals of radio astronomy, including electromagnetic waves and their properties, emission mechanisms and astronomical radio sources, radio telescope instrumentation, and experimental methods and techniques. Offers hands-on experience through an embedded lab component and fieldwork that allows students to operate a radio telescope array located on campus, enabling them to record and analyze data from astronomical sources. Advanced topics include radio interferometry and aperture synthesis.
Prerequisite: PHYS 2303
Term: Fall 2025
CRN: 20195
Schedule: MWR 4:35pm – 5:40pm
Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a radio astronomy observatory located in Socorro County, New Mexico. It comprises 27 radio telescopes deployed in a Y-shaped array. Pictured is one of those 25-meter radio telescopes.
Credit: Bettymaya Foott
The first image of a black hole horizon. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which is an Earth size radio interferometer with 8 large radio telescope working together, obtained this first picture of the event horizon of a supermassive black hole at the center of M87.
Credit: EHT Collaboration
The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is an international radio telescope project that is being built in Australia and South Africa. This is an artists impression of the low frequency sub array, SKA-LOW, that will cover the frequency range 50 MHz-350 MHz. When completed, it will have 131,072 antennas working together to map the structure of the early Universe.
Credit: DISR
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is the worlds largest steerable telescope, standing 485-feet tall, weighing over 17 million pounds, with a 2.3 acre surface.
Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF