Fifty years ago, most Americans had their radios tuned to listen to the voices of Frank Sinatra or Bill Haley & His Comets. But in a Maryland field, Bernard Burke and Kenneth Franklin of the Carnegie Institution were listening to quite a different “voice” – that of the planet Jupiter.
Their discovery, made at an observatory near Seneca, Md., was the first radio emission detected from another planet. The finding was not only big news at the time, it also changed the course of all future planetary science efforts.
To mark the golden anniversary of Burke and Franklin’s achievement, the Carnegie Institution and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will hold a ceremony and symposium open to the public this coming Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005.
The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. and participants will re-live history as researchers demonstrate a receiver and antenna system capable of picking up Jupiter’s “voice” at the intersection of River Road and MD 112 in Seneca, Md. Two hours later, Dr. Burke and others will reflect on the early days of radio astronomy, breakthroughs during the Voyager mission, and the latest efforts to detect radio emissions from planets beyond our solar system. The talks will take place at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, D.C. Later in the evening, astronomer Alycia Weinberger will discuss “Our Solar System and Others Not Like It,” at the Carnegie Science Evening at 6:45 p.m. in the downtown Carnegie headquarters located at 16th and P Sts., NW.
Media who wish to attend either the ceremony or the symposiums should contact Michelle Brooks for access and accreditation. Ms. Brooks can be reached at (202) 478-8830 or via e-mail at brooks@dtm.ciw.edu.
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