Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, Radio telescope observatory in Socorro County, United States
The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array is a radio telescope facility in Socorro County, New Mexico, where white dish antennas sit spread across the Plains of San Agustin. The arrangement forms a Y pattern with three arms reaching across several kilometers of flat desert terrain.
The facility began as a National Radio Astronomy Observatory project in the mid-1970s and grew over several years. After completion in the early 1980s, it was later named for Karl Guthe Jansky, a pioneer of radio astronomy.
The name honors Karl Guthe Jansky, who first detected radio waves from the Milky Way in 1932; the site was renamed for him in 2012 after the EVLA upgrade. The VLA has appeared on screen: Contact (1997) filmed exteriors here, and the array also features in Independence Day and Terminator Salvation. Visitors can walk the grounds and see the dishes up close.
A visitor center provides information about radio astronomy and allows self-guided walks around the grounds. The site sits far from towns in the high desert of New Mexico, where clear weather and low light interference support observations.
Each antenna travels on railway tracks and can be repositioned for different research projects. This mobility lets the facility adapt to changing observation tasks without building new equipment.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,814 contributors worldwide.
