Science · Engineering & invention
Karl Guthe Jansky
Radio engineer and astronomical observer
Also known as Karl Jansky · Karl G. Jansky
Photograph · Image credit
Who they are
Karl Jansky investigated radio interference at Bell Laboratories and traced a persistent hiss to a source beyond the Solar System. His observations overturned an initial suspicion that the signal followed the Sun. The 1933 report opened a route toward radio astronomy by turning a communications problem into a way of studying natural celestial emission.
He connects practical radio engineering with the development of a new astronomical observing method.
Selected contributions
Selected works
Academic paper · 1933
Radio Waves from Outside the Solar System
Jansky reports that a persistent radio signal comes from beyond the Solar System, revising an earlier solar interpretation. The brief notice marks a transition from studying communications interference to astronomical radio observation.
Reading scope & citation
Reused inspected publisher metadata and opening preview; subscription article body was inaccessible.
In the timeline
Biography sources & portrait credit
- Radio Waves from Outside the Solar System ↗Nature 132, 66
- Finding Aid to the Papers of Karl G. Jansky, 1923–1998 ↗National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Portrait credit
NRAO/AUI/NSF. CC BY 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph. Cropped to 4:5, resized to 320 × 400 and converted to WebP.
