The VLBA can contribute to any astronomical research area where quality, high-resolution radio images will advance knowledge of the field. The VLBA has directly measured the expansion of a shell of exploded debris from the supernova SN 1993J, in the galaxy M81, some 11 million light-years from Earth. This has allowed scientists to learn new details about the explosion itself and its surroundings as well as calculate the distance to the supernova by using the VLBA data in conjunction with information from optical telescopes. VLBA images have shown regions of shocked gas in supernova remnants. By measuring these effects with the VLBA, scientists are gaining valuable information about this tenuous component of our own Galaxy.
Similar studies can tell about the distribution of hydrogen gas in our Galaxy.
The great resolving power of the VLBA will allow astronomers to directly measure the distance to the Milky Way's center, some 30,000 light-years away, and has detected the tiny apparent shift in its position caused by our Solar System's motion around that center. The black hole is thought to be surrounded by a rotating disk of material being sucked into it, and jets of subatomic particles accelerated to nearly the speed of light by the gravitational energy of the black hole. VLBA observations also have provided strong evidence that the material in the jets may be a mixture of matter and antimatter. The VLBA's resolving power has allowed the farthest direct distance measurements yet made, of galaxies up to 23 million light- years away. Farther still, the VLBA is being used to study gravitational lenses in attempts to use such lens systems to accurately measure extremely great distances, and thus to refine estimates of the size and age of the universe.