Listening to the stars
Thursday, December 1, 2011 - 10:02
in Astronomy & Space
It is almost night on the island of Puerto Rico. Astronomer Joanna Rankin raises her head toward the sky. A few of the brightest stars shine through blue cracks in a ragged dome of gray clouds. To her back, a jungle throbs with the insistent call of frogs. In front of her, a giant bowl made of perforated metal dips steeply and rises on the other side of the valley, a thousand feet away. It looks like a colossal contact lens dropped from outer space.