Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array

National Radio Astronomy Observatory Facility; 27 Movable 25 Metre Radio Antennas On Rail Track Across The Plains Of San Agustin At About 6,970 Feet · Magdalena, New Mexico

Twenty-seven steerable dish antennas, each 25 metres across and weighing 230 tonnes, stand on a Y of railway track on a high plain ringed by mountains in western New Mexico. Together they work as one radio telescope up to 36 kilometres wide, and the array is physically rearranged four times a year by a locomotive that lifts and carries individual dishes to new pads, trading resolution for field of view. The Plains of San Agustin were chosen because they are high, dry, flat and ringed by mountains that block stray radio noise from the rest of the world, which is also why there is almost nothing else out here. Visitors get a small visitor center with a film, a self-guided walk that takes you to the base of one dish, and the strange experience of standing under something that large in complete silence. It has been photographed and filmed enough that most people recognise it before they know what it is or what it does.

Old Highway 60, Plains of San Agustin, Magdalena, Magdalena, New Mexico, 87825, United States

The visitor center and the self-guided walking tour are open daily during daylight hours, typically from mid-morning to late afternoon, with the last entry to the walking tour an hour or so before closing. Guided tours have historically run on the first Saturday of each month and on scheduled special days. The site occasionally closes for maintenance, weather or federal reasons, and it sits an hour from the nearest town, so confirm before driving out.

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