Karl Jansky

Karl Jansky was an American engineer and radio astronomer who is often credited as the father of radio astronomy. In the 1930s, while working for Bell Labs, he discovered radio waves coming from the Milky Way, marking the first time we observed the universe beyond visible light. Jansky’s work used a large antenna to detect these signals, revealing that celestial objects emit radio frequencies. This groundbreaking discovery opened a new field of observational astrophysics, allowing scientists to study astronomical phenomena, such as pulsars and black holes, in ways previously impossible with only optical telescopes.