What is Jodrell Bank?
Jodrell Bank is a radio astronomy observatory in Cheshire, England, home to the Lovell Telescope, one of the largest steerable radio telescopes in the world. It is part of the University of Manchester and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The observatory was founded in 1945 by astronomer Bernard Lovell, who used surplus military radar equipment to study cosmic rays and meteors.
The Lovell Telescope, completed in 1957, has a dish 76 metres across. Soon after it was completed, it tracked the rocket that carried Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.
Discoveries
Jodrell Bank has contributed to research on pulsars, quasars and gravitational lenses. It is part of a network of radio telescopes across the UK called e-MERLIN.
The headquarters of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, an international radio telescope project, is located at Jodrell Bank.
Jodrell Bank was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
The Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre welcomes visitors, with exhibitions about astronomy and the universe. It hosts the Bluedot festival, combining music and science.
The telescope was upgraded in the 2000s.