Observatories

Owens Valley Millimeter Array near Bishop, California. Professor Lang is shown in a control room with a view of the six-telescope array and the White Mountains. The Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) is operated by the California Institute of Technology.	Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope located just outside Iowa City. This is one of the ten VLBA radio antennas spread across the United States. Our radio astronomers use this and other radio telescopes. The VLBA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.	Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope. This telescope consisting of 27 radio antennas in New Mexico is used by our radio astronomers. The VLA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. (Photograph courtesy of Philip Greenspun.)
Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This telescope is NASA's flagship mission for X-ray astronomy. Professor Lang uses Chandra in combination with radio telescopes to observe the Galactic Center.	Image of the active galaxy BL Lac taken by Professor Mutel with the VLBA. A core at the top is near the location of a black hole, and the long feature below it is thought to be a bent relativistic jet originating from the accretion disk of the black hole. The fractional polarization of the magnetic field, shown in color, was measured to verify this explanation.	Image of the central 60 pc (~100 ly) of the Galaxy, taken by Professor Lang with the VLA. The linear features are interpreted as evidence for a poloidal magnetic field configuration in the central galaxy. Professor Chandran's theoretical topics include the origin and confinement of these magnetic fields.
Image of radio emission from gas in the Sickle HII region of the Galactic center, showing linear magnetic filaments, taken by Professor Lang with the VLA.	X-ray image of the central 900 X 300 light years of the Galaxy, taken by Professor Lang with the Chandra X-ray telescope. This image was featured on the cover of Science News in 2002.

Last updated July 25, 2003. © The University of Iowa 2003. All rights reserved. Contact information. Send questions or comments to the webmaster. The Department of Physics and Astronomy is a part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.