The development of radio astronomy

Following the detection of extraterrestrial radio waves in 1932 by Karl Jansky, radio astronomy developed quickly after World War II. It established itself soon as a new branch of astronomy with today's outstanding record in the detection of new phenomena in space. These have been honoured by a number of Nobel prizes. Radio astronomy largely depends on technical developments in receiver technology, antenna systems, electronics and computing power. Ever shorter wavelengths down to the submm-wavelength range became accessible, resulting in new exciting discoveries. However, now and in future care must be taken, in particular for the lower frequency range, of harmful man-made interferences, which might mask the weak signals from space. New international facilities with orders-of-magnitude higher sensitivity like ALMA and SKA are planned or under construction. Space-borne observatories like PLANCK will detect weak fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background, which will constrain cosmological models with an unprecedented accuracy.