radio telescope

See synonyms for radio telescope on Thesaurus.com
nounAstronomy.
  1. a system consisting of an antenna, either parabolic or dipolar, used to gather radio waves emitted by celestial sources and bring them to a receiver placed in the focus.

Origin of radio telescope

1
First recorded in 1925–30

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use radio telescope in a sentence

  • Now, the Egyptian Astronomical Society has just finished constructing a new radio telescope.

    The Egyptian Cat Mystery | Harold Leland Goodwin
  • Then the blacktop road curved out into the desert to the great radio telescope.

    The Egyptian Cat Mystery | Harold Leland Goodwin
  • Later, the boys helped check circuits while the radio telescope swung through a variety of arcs, with Farid at the controls.

    The Egyptian Cat Mystery | Harold Leland Goodwin
  • Parnell Winston faced the group of Egyptian scientists in the crowded radio-telescope control room.

    The Egyptian Cat Mystery | Harold Leland Goodwin
  • Their whole attention was given to the problem of getting the big radio telescope working.

    The Egyptian Cat Mystery | Harold Leland Goodwin

British Dictionary definitions for radio telescope

radio telescope

noun
  1. an instrument consisting of an antenna or system of antennas connected to one or more radio receivers, used in radio astronomy to detect and analyse radio waves from space

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for radio telescope

radio telescope

  1. An instrument that consists of a radio receiver and antenna system mounted on a wide, bowl-shaped reflector, used to detect radio-frequency emissions from astronomical objects. The reflector and receiver form a parabolic antenna; incoming radio waves are focused by the reflector onto the receiver, where the radio signals are translated into electrical signals for further processing or electronic display. Due to the long wavelengths of radio waves, the reflectors of radio telescopes must be very large to focus the waves at a good resolution. Separate reflectors are sometimes linked in fixed arrays to act as a single collector.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.