IEEE New Jersey Coast Section Centennial Journal Part - GHN

The Father of
Radio Astronomy
Karl G, Jansky
A young father he was, too-for Karl Jansky was only 22when
he started work at Bell Laboratoiies to record and measure
radio static. This was in 1928. Overseas radiotelephone service
had started only a year or so earlier and knowing more about
noise was important. Four years later, in 1932, Jansky pubtished
a paper in which he classilied three kinds of static: that from local
thunderstorms, that from distant thunderstorms, and "a steady
hiss static, the origin of which is not known."
Let Dr. Harald Friis, in whose group Jansky was working,
continue the story. "The hiss-type static, or hiss noise, fascinated
Karl," Friis wrote years later. "Having collected thousands of
records, he discussed the data with his colleague A. M. Skellet,
who was familiar with astronomy. The conclusion was that the
hiss noise came from the Milky Way."' This conclusion, reported
by Jansky in papers published in '1933, was supported by the
fact that the noise, which sounded like the fluctuating "thermal"
noise in electrical circuits, was strongest when Jansky pointed
the antenna he was using at the Milky Way's center.
Thisdjscovery was one of the epochal events in the history ol
science. For centuries astronomers had studied the heavens using
optical techniques alone. Now, for the first time, the mysteries of
heavenly bodies, and of space itself, were manifesting themselves
through the radio spectrum as well.
Yet strangely, scientists were slow to grasp the meaning ol this
revelation. Jansky himself, continuing at Bell Laboratories,
'"Karl Jansky: His Career at Bell Telephone Laboratories," Scieace, Vol. 1t19,
No.3686 (August 20, 1965), p.841.
'l"R.dio Astronomy's 5Oth Year" Be11 Laboratories Record, April 83