The Parkes radio telescope is a large scientific instrument located in New South Wales, Australia. It is used to observe the Universe at radio wavelengths and has been instrumental in a number of important astronomical discoveries.
The telescope was designed and built by British engineer Sir Martin Ryle and Australian engineer John Bolton. It began operations in 1961 and was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Robert Menzies.
The Parkes radio telescope is currently operated by the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. It is one of the largest single-dish radio telescopes in the world, with a dish diameter of 64 metres.
The telescope has been used for a wide variety of scientific observations, including studies of the Sun, pulsars, galaxies, and interstellar gas clouds. It was also used to track the progress of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission as it made its way to the Moon in 1969.
In recent years, the Parkes radio telescope has been used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). In 2016, it captured signals from a distant neutron star that were later determined to be coming from an orbiting exoplanet.