Timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory

This is a timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory.

1930s

• 1939 — Jodrell Bank site purchased by the University of Manchester as a botany field station.[1]

1940s

Observations at Jodrell Bank in 1945.

• 1945, December — Bernard Lovell arrives at Jodrell Bank with several trailers of radar equipment from World War II.[2]
• 1947 — The 66 meter Transit Telescope is constructed.[3][4]

1950s

The Mark 1 under construction.

• 1950, August — The transit telescope is used to make the first detection of radio waves from the nearby Andromeda Galaxy.[5][6]
• 1950 — Charles Husband presents first drawings of the proposed giant, fully steerable radio telescope.[7]
• 1952, September — Construction of the Mark I telescope begins.[8]
• 1957, October — The Mark I telescope becomes operational. It tracks the carrier rocket of Sputnik 1; the only telescope in the West able to do so.[9][10]

1960s

• 1960, May — Lord Nuffield pays the remaining debt on the Mark I and the observatory is renamed the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories.[11]
• 1962 — As part of a radio-linked interferometer, the Mark I identifies a new class of compact radio sources, later recognised as quasars.[12]
• 1962 — Jodrell Bank radio telescope is mentioned in the Science Fiction novel A for Andromeda by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.
• 1964 — The Mark II telescope is completed.[13]
• 1966 — The Mark I receives pictures from Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.[14]
• 1966 — The Mark III telescope is completed.[15]
• 1968 — The Mark I confirms the existence of pulsars.[16]
• 1968 — The Mark I took part in the first transatlantic VLBI experiment in 1968, with other telescopes being those at Algonquin and Penticton in Canada.[17]
• 1969 — The Mark I is used for the first time in a VLBI observation, with the Arecibo radio telescope in 1969.[12]

1970s

• 1970–1971 — The Mark I is repaired and upgraded; it is renamed to the Mark IA.[15]
• 1972–1973 — The Mark I carries out a survey of radio sources; amongst these sources was the first gravitational lens, which was confirmed optically in 1979.[18]
• 1976, January — storms bring winds of around 90 mph which almost destroy the telescope. Bracing girders are added.[19]

1980s

• 1980 — The Mark IA is used as part of the new MERLIN array.[12]
• 1982 — The 42 ft telescope is built, to replace the 50 ft.
• 1986 — The first pulsar in a globular cluster is discovered.[12]
• 1986 — The Mark II telescope is given a new surface that is accurate to 1/3 mm.[13]
• 1987 — The Mark IA is renamed the Lovell Telescope after Bernard Lovell.[20]

1990s

• 1990 — The new 32 m Cambridge telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is added to the MERLIN array.[12]
• 1992 — The MERLIN array becomes a national facility.[12]
• 1993 — At the request of NASA, the Lovell Telescope searches for the Mars Observer spacecraft.[21]
• 1998 — The Lovell Telescope begins participation with the SETI Project Phoenix[22][23]

2000s

The Lovell telescope mid-resurfacing.

• 2000, February — The Lovell Telescope searches for NASA's Mars Polar Lander.[24]
• 2000 — Placebo recorded the video for The Bitter End at Jodrell Bank.
• 2000–2002 — The Lovell Telescope is resurfaced, increasing its sensitivity at 5 GHz by a factor of five.
• 2003, December — The Lovell Telescope searches for the Beagle 2 lander on Mars.
• 2004, January — Astronomers from Jodrell Bank, Australia, Italy and the U.S. discover the first known double pulsar.
• 2004 — Minor scenes for the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are filmed at Jodrell Bank.
• 2005, February — Astronomers using the Lovell Telescope discovered a galaxy that appears to be made almost entirely of dark matter.[25]
• 2005, March — Jodrell Bank becomes the centre of the World's largest scale model of the Solar System as part of the Spaced Out project.[26]
• 2006, September — Jodrell Bank wins the BBC's online competition to find the UK's greatest "Unsung Landmark".[21]

2010s

• 2011, March — Jodrell Bank is included on the UK Tentative List for nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site[27]
• 2019, July — The observatory becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[28][29]

References

1. History on U of manchester web site, accessed 24/10/2007
2. Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 3
3. "Jodrell Bank Observatory - The Early History". Retrieved 2007-06-10.
4. Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 17
5. Out of the Zenith, p. 7
6. Astronomer by Chance, p. 175
7. Lovell, Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 35
8. Lovell, Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 44
9. Lovell, Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 196
10. Lovell, Astronomer by Chance, p. 262
11. Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 244
12. "JBO - Milestones". Retrieved 2007-05-28.
13. "The MKII Radio Telescope". Jodrell Bank Observatory. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
14. Lovell, Story of Jodrell Bank, p. 250
    "On This Day - 3 February 1966: Soviets land probe on Moon". BBC News. 1966-02-03. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
    "The Lunar Landscape". Time Magazine. 11 February 1966. Retrieved 2007-04-07.
15. Lovell, The Jodrell Bank Telescopes
16. Lovell, Out of the Zenith, pp. 130-135
17. Lovell, Out of the Zenith, pp. 67-68
18. Lovell, Astronomer by Chance, pp. 297-301
19. "The MKIA Radio Telescope". Jodrell Bank Observatory. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
20. "Lovell Radio Telescope refurbished". BBC News. 28 April 2003. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
21. Rohrer, Finlo (5 September 2006). "Aye to the telescope". BBC News.
22. "Scientists listen intently for ET". BBC News. 1 February 1998. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
23. "Alien hunters back on track". BBC News. 23 March 1999. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
24. "Earth turns its ears to Mars". BBC News. 2 October 2000. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
    "Quiet please, we're listening to Mars". BBC News. 3 February 2000. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
    "Mars lander search goes on". BBC News. 8 February 2000. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
25. "Seeing the invisible — first dark galaxy discovered?". Jodrell Bank Observatory press release. 23 February 2005. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
26. "SpacedOut Location: The Sun at Jodrell Bank". Archived from the original on 2005-12-13. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
27. "Jodrell Bank bids for world heritage status". Inside the M60. 22 March 2011. Archived from the original on 18 August 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-22. External link in |publisher= (help)
28. "Six cultural sites added to UNESCO's World Heritage List". UNESCO. 7 July 2019.
29. "Jodrell Bank gains Unesco World Heritage status". BBC News. Retrieved 7 July 2019.

Books

• Lovell, Bernard (1968). Story of Jodrell Bank. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-217619-6.
• Lovell, Bernard (1973). Out of the Zenith: Jodrell Bank, 1957-70. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-217624-2.
• Lovell, Bernard (1985). The Jodrell Bank Telescopes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-858178-5.
• Lovell, Bernard (1990). Astronomer by Chance. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-55195-8.