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The Holmdel Horn Antenna

New Jersey · New Jersey
Satellite view of The Holmdel Horn Antenna
Satellite view of this location, not a photograph of the subject · Imagery © Esri

The antenna that overheard the Big Bang, still on Crawford Hill

In 1965 two radio astronomers aimed this horn at the sky and found a hiss they could not explain or get rid of. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson had picked up the cosmic microwave background, the radiation that permeates the entire universe, and it was the evidence that confirmed the Big Bang. It stands as one of the most important discoveries in physical cosmology since Hubble showed that the universe was expanding. The antenna is still up on Crawford Hill in Holmdel Township, a National Historic Landmark since 1989: a big metal ear pointed at the beginning of everything.

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New Jersey
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