Very Long Baseline Array

The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) is a powerful radio telescope system composed of ten 25-meter (82-foot) dishes spread across the United States, from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii. This array operates at wavelengths ranging from 3 mm to 1 meter. The VLBA is used to study celestial objects like quasars, galactic nuclei, pulsars, and radio stars with exceptional resolution, achieving detail over 100 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope.1

Unlike other arrays, the VLBA's individual antenna elements are not directly connected. Instead, signals are recorded on computer disk drives and then transported to a processing center in New Mexico for analysis. Precise timing between elements is maintained by hydrogen maser atomic clocks at each site. The VLBA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).12