The Dish at Stanford University is a steerable radio telescope used for satellite calibrations, spacecraft command and telemetry, and radio astronomy measurements.
Measuring approximately 150 feet (or 46 meters) in diameter, the steel and aluminum parabolic antenna was built in the early 1960s by the Stanford Research Institute with funding from the US Air Force to probe the scattering properties of Earth’s ionosphere.
Located in the Stanford foothills south of the campus, the trails around The Dish are popular with hikers and joggers.