Watch SETI-Seeking Radio Dishes Dance Across the Universe

Radio dishes always evoke wonder, as these giants search for invisible (to our eyes, anyway) radio signals from objects like distant quasars, pulsars, masers and more, including potential signals from extraterrestrials. This new timelapse from Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan of Sunchaser Pictures was shot at several different radio astronomy facilities — the Very Large Array (VLA) Observatory in New Mexico, Owens Valley Observatory in Owens Valley California, and Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. All three of these facilities have been or are still being partly used by the SETI (Search for the Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program.

Watch the dishes dance in their search across the Universe!

The huge meteorite streaking across the sky above Very Large Array (2:40) is from the Aquarids meteor shower. The large radio telescope at Green Bank is where scientists first attempted to “listen” to presence of extraterrestrials in the galaxy. The Very Large Array was featured in the movie CONTACT (1997) while Owens Observatory was featured in THE ARRIVAL (1996).

This video was created for SkyGlowProject.com, a crowdfunded educational project that explores the effects and dangers of urban light pollution in contrast with some of the most incredible Dark Sky Preserves in North America.

The music is by Tom Boddy, and titled “Thoughtful Reflections.”

Thanks to Gavin Heffernan for sharing this video.

Screenshot from the DishDance timelapse. Credit and copyright: Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan.

SKYGLOW: DISHDANCE from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

Here’s How to Weigh Gigantic Filaments of Dark Matter

How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully,…

2 hours ago

How Could Astronauts Call for Help from the Moon?

Exploring the Moon poses significant risks, with its extreme environment and hazardous terrain presenting numerous…

14 hours ago

There Was a 15 Minute Warning Before Tonga Volcano Exploded

Volcanoes are not restricted to the land, there are many undersea versions. One such undersea…

15 hours ago

Main Sequence and White Dwarf Binaries are Hiding in Plain Sight

Some binary stars are unusual. They contain a main sequence star like our Sun, while…

16 hours ago

What a Misplaced Meteorite Told Us About Mars

11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is…

18 hours ago

Uranus is Getting Colder and Now We Know Why

Uranus is an oddball among the Solar System's planets. While most planets' axis of rotation…

21 hours ago