The old jokes are the best jokes.
Q: what is the state flower of West Viriginia?
A: The satellite dish
So in WV, of course there's the biggest steerable radio telescope in the world.
The telescope was built to replace an older one that collapsed in 1988. The story goes it collapsed one night while the single scientist on duty was in the toilet. Apparently it was his first night on duty.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope measures 100 by 110 meters. This puppy is NOT falling down, unlike its predecessor. This thing has struts connecting the struts that connect to the struts. Its sensitivity is measured in janskies (equal to one-hundredth of one-trillionth of a trillionth of a watt per square meter per hertz). Its thousands of panels, each with their own motors, that struggle to keep the parabolic shape despite wind, gravity, thermal...
The telescope operates in normal model; safe mode (shut down for routine maintenance); and snow mode (when it has to melt off the snow fall).
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