KARL G. JANSKY VERY LARGE ARRAY

The Very Large Array is located 75 km west of Socorro and 300 km from a well-known city of the inhabitants of the Earth and other planets outside our Solar System: Roswell! Roswell! Many amateurs benefit from their journey from this side of New Mexico to check whether some aliens have landed well in this desert region, and whether it is possible to bring souvenirs from their coming here. More seriously, VLA is a radio observatory known for a long time by astronomy amateurs, and made famous for the rest of the world in 1997 thanks to Robert Zemeckis' film Contact. It is indeed from the foot of one of its 27 parabolic giant antennas that Jodie Foster 'hears'the famous signal coming from a distant star, as part of the search for alien life SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Although the VLA has never really participated in this ambitious program, its visit remains extremely interesting and, to all intents and purposes, impressive. In fact, each antenna measures approximately 25 m in diameter and moves on a network of rails allowing it to deviate from its consonants according to the precision that is desired in the radio observation of the pointed objects: The more remote the antennas are, the better the resolution of the recorded signal. The visit is free but it is best to register for the guided tour on Saturday so as to have maximum information on the technical areas traveled.