Star Time

Thayer School Professor Timothy Hankins has invented a device that "cleans" radio waves from distant stars. The device, installed on the world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, may once again make astronomers the world's official timekeepers. It is suspected that pulses emitted by certain distant stars are accurate atomic clocks.

The signal processor also will play a central role in a ten-year experiment undertaken by Princeton astronomers to determine if there are minute changes in the Earth's shape. Scientists theorize that variation may be caused by invisible "gravity waves" left over from the "big-bang" creation of the universe.