1951

Grote Reber’s work in radio astronomy was first funded by RC.

Karl Jansky laid the foundations of radio astronomy in 1932 while working for the Bell Telephone labs. While working on a project to identify sources of interference on shortwave radio links, he became aware of a hiss that would appear and peak once a day in his radio receiver. He noticed that the hiss peaked 4 minutes earlier each day, suggesting that radio waves were being emitted from the center of the galaxy. But Jansky abandoned his study when Bell labs failed to show interest in his discovery.

In 1937, Jansky’s work was taken up by radio engineer and ham radio operator Grote Reber, who built a 32-foot parabolic dish antenna in his backyard and used it to pinpoint the first radio sources beyond Earth. Reber, who is considered to be the first radio astronomer, then created a radio map of the sky. RC awarded Reber grants for his study of radio astronomy for over 20 years, from 1952 to 1974.