Unseen images capture the birth of Manchester's space age
01.06.2022 - 08:47
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
It helps star-gazers look across the galaxy, has tracked Russian satellites during the Cold War and is also a family attraction most people in Manchester will have enjoyed a day out at.
Jodrell Bank is one of the world’s earliest sites for radio-telescopes and is seen as playing a pivotal role in the development of the science of radio astronomy. Although the attraction is in Cheshire, it is owned by the University of Manchester and was pioneered by one of its alumni.
In 1945, it became used for space observation under physicist Bernard Lovell, but only when equipment intended for Manchester had to be moved because electricity from trams on Oxford Road interfered with it. This remote location was ideal and Lovell's results were good, but it wasn’t cosmic rays he had found, but meteors.
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The accidental discovery was the start of radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank. Since then its most recognisable feature has become the Lovell Telescope, which was given Grade I listed status in 1988.
Engineers told Lovell that a giant radio telescope would be impossible to build, until he met Charles Husband, a bridge engineer from Sheffield. Together they designed a fully-steerable radio telescope with a 250ft diameter dish - first known as the ‘Mark 1’.
In its lifetime, Jodrell Bank and its telescopes have discovered stars and also played a key role in the Space Race and the Cold War. It tracked both Soviet and American space missions, receiving and sending transmissions and verifying success or failure.
In 1966, the first images taken from the surface of the Moon, transmitted from the Soviet’s Luna 9 space probe, were received at