The Dish | Saturday, March 04, 2006 |
As mentioned by Simon, earlier this week I visited Parkes, home of 'The Dish', Australia's famous radio telescope.
As well as detecting quasars and interstellar magnetic clouds, the telescope has helped NASA by picking up transmissions from their Apollo moon missions, most famously during the moon landing, but apparently also playing a vital role in the Apollo 13 rescue.
Parkes itself seems to be a centre of organised activcity, last year hosting a large drought rally and yesterday it was home to a demonstration about the future of the scandal-wracked AWB. I understand the demonstrators yesterday were mostly wheat growers, but the AWB has it's fingers in many pies, including the wool industry.
