Telescope provides insight for University astronomers

From one area in Puerto Rico, the view of the heavens can be the best in the world.

There, near the town of Arecibo, sits the world's most powerful radio telescope, where University professors and students sharpen the world's focus on the universe. They catch glimpses of pulsars the size of State College and planets smaller than specks of dust.

The three planets discovered -- two Earth-sized and another about the size of the moon -- revolve around a pulsar that weighs about 1.5 times the sun's mass but is about 20 miles in diameter.

After being largely closed for three years for upgrading, Arecibo is coming back to life this year, gearing up for the research of Wolszczan and other astronomers.

Meanwhile, John Mathews, professor of electrical engineering, observes from the same observatory to study micrometeors -- some tiny former planets, others "interstellar particles" from outside the solar system -- that fall to Earth and burn up.

"There are important astronomical questions that need to be answered," said Diego Janches (graduate-electrical engineering), who works with Mathews. "Arecibo is a system that is giving the possibility to do things that before weren't even dreamed of."

Now that Wolszczan, who along with Mathews visits the observatory a few times a year to do research, has had time to digest one historic first in the astronomy world, he is ready for more. He already has evidence the planetary system he discovered may include a fourth planet farther out, he said.

These planets are probably dense, metallic balls, he said, and unfriendly to life as we know it because of the deadly radiation the pulsar emits.

The next astronomical "holy grail" Wolszczan said he will search for is a black hole binary, a theoretical system made of a black hole and a pulsar orbiting together.

Discovering a black hole binary would help scientists study black holes more directly than ever. Because a black hole cannot be seen, it cannot be studied directly. But if a pulsar revolves with it, the black hole can be studied through the pulsar.

Wolszczan said he also uses the telescope for educational purposes. This spring break, he will bring some students to Puerto Rico to observe, as he did during Fall Semester.

"We had about 45 minutes to go to the beach," he said of last semester's trip.

Meanwhile, Mathews and three of his students study another type of planet from the Arecibo Observatory.

His planets are tiny particles, weighing a few micrograms, which have been orbiting the sun for millions of years but are caught by Earth's gravity. As they burn up, they leave a small but visible trail of plasma Mathews can observe.

Most of these "micrometeors" must be made of ceramic-like materials, he said, because they have flown so close to the sun that they otherwise would have melted.

By measuring the speed they travel, Mathews said he can estimate where the particles are from. Some probably have fallen in from the outer edges of the solar system, an area that remains largely a mystery to scientists.

At least one of the particles observed seemed to be traveling at too high a speed to come from the solar system. It could be an "interstellar particle" -- a visitor from outside the solar system.

With the data, Mathews and his assistants are creating a three-dimensional model of the solar system that shows the distribution of the micrometeors.

Though it is more powerful than ever, observations from a radio telescope such as Arecibo is increasingly difficult because interference from other radio waves increases each year, he said.

"There's really nowhere to go except to leave the Earth and go somewhere far away," he said. The best place to put a telescope today, Mathews said, is on the other side of the moon.