Photo: CHIME Telescope

Astronomy students in the Okanagan will have a rare chance to tour a world-class radio telescope this weekend in Kaleden. 

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory is hosting a free tour on Saturday, March 24, open to senior high school students enrolled in physics and astronomy classes and Okanagan College and UBCO students.

"We hope that this complements their learning and that it makes them a little bit more enthusiastic about what they might do in the future with respect to physics and astronomy," said Ryan Ransom, department chair of physics and astronomy at Okanagan College Penticton and visiting scientist at the observatory. 

The tour will include a look at the entire facility and all its major instruments, including the highly sophisticated Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment radio telescope, which has just begun researching the origins of the universe in recent months.

The experiment detects extremely faint radio light from the earliest moments of the universe, so the equipment is highly sensitive.

"Guests will need to turn off their cellphones," Ransom said. "Your cellphone is something like a billion, billion times more energetic than what we're observing." 

Guests will also get to meet and speak to some of the engineers and astronomers at the facility.

Tours will run 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday. 

For those who aren't astronomy or physics students, though, Ransom said there would be upcoming open houses and tours that anyone can attend.

Anyone in Kelowna interested in the CHIME project can learn about it that same evening at 7 p.m. with UBC astrophysicist Mark Halpern, who will give a free talk about the experiment at the Okanagan Innovation Centre theatre.