The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: September seventeenth, star-watching in Socorro.

The vast, barren plains of Western New Mexico are a classic Old West landscape, endless sun-parched grasses ringed by time-worn mountain peaks. Yet, there's a spot on U.S. Route 60 where you can study stars all day long. One-hundred-thirty miles southwest of Albuquerque, there's a cluster of 27 huge, white, antenna dishes sprouting from the sand like some sort of giant mushroom. This is the VLA, or Very Large Array, the most versatile, far-seeing, radio telescope on the planet Earth.

When pointed into deepest space, the VLA's antennas can collect faint radio and light waves given off by objects up to a billion light years away. These waves are combined by computers into distinct photographic images that help reveal how and when our universe was formed.

Each of the huge antennas measures 87 feet in diameter and weighs more than a hundred tons. Yet they can easily be re-arranged along a 13 mile "Y" shaped track. This enormous flexibility allows scientists to adjust the VLA's focus, zooming in and pulling back, giving perspective to objects thousands of light-years away. Even with the Hubble and other space-based observation points, the VLA's findings are helping to expand the universe, or at least our understanding of it.

Visitors learn how the giant telescope works and see many distant images that have been captured. It's well worth the stop. After all, how often will you personally witness a star being born at the edge of the universe? Talk about humbling experiences.

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