The pandemic has taught us the value of the internet; for work, school, even to order the essentials of life. The past year has also exposed the brutal realities of the digital divide. Access to reliable, fast internet is essential for city and country dwellers. In this episode of Us & Them, we’ll hear about the internet challenges from residents of rural Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Its stunning rolling farmland is home to the Green Bank Observatory, a high tech facility that can communicate with distant planets. Despite more than a decade of federal initiatives across the country, internet service in this isolated area cannot match speed with grazing cows or is nonexistent. One customer there calls it “dependably unreliable.”
After more than 10 years of federal money and a lot of inaction, we look at why high-speed internet service hasn’t found its way into more rural West Virginia homes.
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.
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Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope in Pocahontas County have discovered a massive neutron star. Scientists believe this is the largest neutron star ever discovered.
Neutron stars, sometimes called pulsars, are the compressed remains of stars that have exploded into a supernova. Supernovas occur when stars reach the end of their life and explode into a powerful burst of light and energy.
Neutron stars are one of the most dense objects in the universe, second only to black holes. But little else is known about the interior of one of these stars. Just a single sugar-cube worth of neutron star material would weigh 100 million tons on earth. That’s about the same as the entire human population.
The recently discovered star is about 4,600 light years from earth. According to a press release from the Green Bank Observatory, this neutron star approaches “the limits of how massive and compact a single object can become without crushing itself down into a black hole.”
Astronomers at the W.Va. telescope plan to continue studying this particular neutron star, and what it might reveal about the nature of spacetime.
West Virginia’s Green Bank Observatory will continue operating under the National Science Foundation.
Green Bank Observatory Director Karen O’Neil announced the foundation’s decision in a statement Tuesday, July 30.
The foundation had been evaluating options for the observatory, ranging from collaboration with outside partners to continue its science and education mission to demolishing it.
The foundation, which in 2012 provided 95 percent of its funding, has been reducing its financial support. Associated Universities Inc. has operated the observatory since 2016.
O’Neil says the foundation acknowledged the observatory’s high scientific value. She says the focus will be to ensure the facility remains competitive, produces high quality science and maximizes access by the U.S. astronomy community.
The observatory includes a 100-meter diameter radio telescope, astronomy and astrophysics instrumentation, office and laboratory buildings, a visitor and education facility and lodging facilities for visiting scientists.
The National Science Foundation heard public comments as part of a process to consider changes to the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
The Register-Herald reports nearly 50 people outlined their reasoning Thursday for why the Pocahontas County facility should stay in operation as it is.
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement highlights five possibilities for the facility. They range from the foundation seeking collaboration with interested parties that would share costs, to demolition of the site. The foundation’s representatives named the collaboration option as its preferred alternative, but said all avenues must be explored.
A statement from U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin highlighted the scientific accomplishments of the observatory. U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s statement emphasized its impact on the community.
The study of public comments will be completed in January.
The National Science Foundation is evaluating options for West Virginia’s Green Bank Observatory, ranging from collaboration with outside partners to continue its science and education mission to demolishing it.The observatory, located by the Monongahela National Forest, includes a 100-meter diameter single-dish radio telescope, instrumentation for astronomy and astrophysics, office and laboratory buildings, a visitor and education facility and lodging facilities for visiting scientists. It has about 100 year-round employees and 50,000 annual visitors. The foundation, which in 2012 provided 95 percent of its funding, has been reducing its financial support. It will hold a public meeting Nov. 30 at the Green Bank Science Center to discuss its draft report. Other options include collaborations to operate it as a technology and education park, mothballing the facilities and continuing support.
A powerful space-exploration facility in operation since the 1950s is under threat. Residents of the tiny West Virginia community in which it resides and its extended family of scientists and educators are rallying to save it.
Nestled in the hills in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, is the Green Bank Telescope. At 485 feet tall and about 300 feet across, it’s the largest fully-steerable telescope in the world, and it belongs to Green Bank Observatory.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A model radio telescope outside the Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County, W.Va.
Since the observatory opened in 1957, researchers have used the facility to make several discoveries, like organic prebiotic molecules — the building blocks of life. The Green Bank Telescope is also one of only two radio telescopes in the world searching for signs of intelligent life in space. But today, the telescope and the facility that supports it are under federal review — with the possibility of losing funding or being dismantled.
In the face of that threat, one West Virginia family hopes to convince the powers that be of the facility’s value to science, education and the small town in which the telescope resides.
“It’s almost like a tiny metropolitan city in the middle of rural West Virginia,” said Ellie White, a 16-year-old from Barboursville, West Virginia. “That kind of resource is invaluable for kids across the state and across the country, who are going to be tomorrow’s innovators, engineers, scientists, politicians, artists.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Josh (from left), Deana and Ellie White at a Green Bank Observatory conference room.
White’s family volunteered to start a campaign called “Go Green Bank Observatory” to rally support from across the country and show the National Science Foundation, which used to almost completely fund the observatory, that Green Bank Observatory is worth keeping. In 2012, the NSF published a portfolio review that recommended at least partially divesting from several observatories around the country that no longer have as large of a scientific impact as they used to. Green Bank Observatory was on that list.
Proposed operational changes for Green Bank Observatory range from continuing to partially fund its operations to shutting down its research operations and turning it into a technology park, or completely tearing it down.
“This is one of the difficult things the NSF has to do,” said Edward Ahjar, an astronomer at the NSF. “All of our facilities do great science, and that’s why we fund them. But when we start having less and less money to spread around, then we have to prioritize them. Which are doing the most important science now? Which are lower ranked?”
Credit Roxy Todd / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Edward Ahjar (center) listens to the public’s input during the second public scoping meeting held at Green Bank Observatory on Nov. 9, 2016.
The Fight to Keep Green Bank Observatory Open
Last fall, Go Green Bank Observatory encouraged fans to speak at two public scoping meetings where Ahjar and other representatives from the NSF would be present to hear the public’s input about the divestment process.
About 350 people filled the seats of an auditorium at the observatory. Several in attendance were affiliated with West Virginia University, which since 2006 has received more than $14.5 million in grant dollars for research related to the Green Bank Telescope.
“When I started applying for graduate school, WVU was one of my top choices,” said Kaustubh Rajwade, a graduate student from India in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at WVU. “The only reason I came here was so I could use the Green Bank Telescope.”
Others, like Buster Varner, a local fire chief, were more concerned about Green Bank Observatory’s role in the community as a de facto community center, where people can hold meetings and classes.
“Whenever we had a catastrophe, we can go to Mike,” Varner said, referring to Mike Holstine, the business manager at Green Bank Observatory. “I don’t know much about this science, and there’s a lot of people here who does and that’s great. But I do not want anything to happen to this facility, period.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County, W.Va.
The NSF once almost completely funded Green Bank Observatory’s operations. But Holstine said that especially in the past five years, the observatory saw a need to diversify its sources of funding — in part because outside organizations and researchers expressed a willingness to pay for time on the telescope, but also due to the clear indicators that the observatory needed to rely less on the NSF.
Green Bank Observatory employs between 100 and 140 people — more than half of whom are from Pocahontas County — depending on the time of year. The money also helps the observatory maintain its own infrastructure in an isolated and rural area.
“You kind of need to think of us as a town, a self-contained town,” Holstine explained. “We have our own roads. We have our own water system. We have our own wastewater system. We take care of our own buildings. We mow our own grass; we cut our own trees. We have to plow snow in the winter.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Green Bank Telescope at Green Bank Observatory is the largest fully-steerable telescope in the world.
A Future Without Green Bank Observatory
For White, the Observatory isn’t only worth keeping because of its accomplishments — but also because of its efforts to train the next generation of scientists. When she was younger, White was convinced she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. But since playing among the telescopes as a child, she has gone on to work on projects under the mentorship of astronomers and graduate students from all over the world.
She’s not the only teen who’s been impacted by the observatory’s work; through the Pulsar Search Collaboratory, more than 2,000 high school students have worked with the Green Bank Observatory through a partnership with West Virginia University since 2007.
“Just generally being here, you learn something every day. It’s like learning a new language through immersion,” White said.
The NSF will reach its decision about the Green Bank Observatory’s fate by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. At 16 years old, White hopes to get her doctorate in astrophysics and one day find full employment at the observatory. If it shuts down, White said, she might have to look for employment out of state.
