The development of radio astronomy

Abstract

Following the detection of extraterrestrial radio waves in 1932 by Karl Jansky, radio astronomy developed quickly after World War II. It established itself soon as a new branch of astronomy with today's outstanding record in the detection of new phenomena in space. These have been honoured by a number of Nobel prizes. Radio astronomy largely depends on technical developments in receiver technology, antenna systems, electronics and computing power. Ever shorter wavelengths down to the submm-wavelength range became accessible, resulting in new exciting discoveries. However, now and in future care must be taken, in particular for the lower frequency range, of harmful man-made interferences, which might mask the weak signals from space. New international facilities with orders-of-magnitude higher sensitivity like ALMA and SKA are planned or under construction. Space-borne observatories like PLANCK will detect weak fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background, which will constrain cosmological models with an unprecedented accuracy.