Jodrell Bank launches new exhibition

17 Feb 2014

The Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre is launching a brand new exhibition in time for the February half-term.

Big Telescopes, Big Science!, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s ‘Science in Society’ programme and built by Science Projects, has hands-on activities showing how telescopes work and the principles that underlie their operation.

In particular, it has a unique set of exhibits that show how many smaller telescopes can work together in an ‘array’ to act as one large telescope.

The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank was a pioneer of this technique from the 1950s and today hosts the UK’s national array of radio telescopes (eMERLIN), which is overseen from the Control Building at the Observatory.

The exhibit tells the story of the early days of work on combining telescopes around Jodrell Bank and moves through to look at today’s massive arrays of telescopes spread across countries, continents and even out in space.

Dr Teresa Anderson, Director of the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, said: “We’re delighted to have this exhibition, which shows people about the ongoing science carried out by scientists here at Jodrell Bank and across the world. It really fills the main gap in our original exhibition and we think that people will really enjoy it.”

Professor Tim O’Brien, Associate Director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, added: “Our research here is far-reaching and often people don’t have a chance to appreciate the scope, in terms both of the technology and the huge level of international collaboration that takes place between scientists.”

The Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre is open from 10am to 5pm every day during February half-term. As well as the new indoor exhibition, the Centre will also be unveiling new outdoor hands-on interactive exhibits.

The ticket price also includes free entry into one of its Science Shows and lunchtime ‘Meet the Expert’ sessions.

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