Front of dish antennas

The front of one of the dish antennas that makes up the Very Large Array, a group of 27 230-ton, 25-meter dish antennas that, together, are responsible for collecting some of the most important data in the science of astronomy. The Very Large Array is a part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and is located in the Plains of San Agustin, about 50 miles west of Socorro, N.M.

CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman visited the VLA as part of Road Trip 2007, his trip around the Southwest in search of science- and technology-related stories.