The new South African telescope publishes an epic image of the center of the galaxy



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Image: SARAO

You look at the center of our galactic house, the Milky Way, in an image made by 64 radio telescopes in South Africa. Scientists released the image this week to inaugurate the MeerKAT radio telescope. But these telescopes are part of an even more ambitious project: the Square Kilometer Array a joint effort whose goal is to build the world's largest telescope that would cover the continents of Africa and from Australia.

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This image shows filaments of particles, structures that appear to be aligned with the central black hole of the galaxy. It is not known how the filaments are produced. It is possible that they are particles expelled by the rotating black hole. Or they can be hypnotized "cosmic strings". According to a 2017 publication of the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, it is also possible that they are not unique and that there are other similar structures that we do not have. have not found yet.

"The image of MeerKAT seems incredible to me because the fine filaments that appear in the image are excellent markers of a galactic magnetic field, which we do not see in most of the optical and infrared data, "commented Erin Ryan. of space research at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, Gizmodo . "High resolution data like these will help in the study of magnetic galactic fields and their possible importance for galactic evolution."

Each of the 64 MeerKAT radio receivers represents a radio antenna of just over 13 meters. Antennas collect radio waves from cosmic sources (such as the center of the galaxy) with a timestamp, convert them into digital information, and send the information to a central location. The data of each receiver are correlated to create an image

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To better understand it, imagine an ordinary telescope, in which light is collected with mirrors and reproduced in the center. In this case, it is as if each of the radio telescopes is itself a mirror, and the "center" is where the fiber optic cables come together to create the main image.

Finally, MeerKAT will be part of the Square Kilometer Array (also known by its acronym in English, SKA), which was named so because it will have a data collection area of ​​square kilometers, potentially with a resolution higher Hubble telescope in a radio band. By the end of the 2020s, it should include 2,000 radio antennas in the Karoo region of South Africa and Murchinson Shire in Western Australia. In total, the project could include a day 3,000 dishes in other African countries, according to the South African News24 network.

News24 reports that MeerKAT cost more than $ 330 million. The cost of SKA has not yet been determined.

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A telescope like this could have many very important uses . Perhaps he could measure the story of the expansion of the universe to help understand the mysterious and dark energy. It could also offer more information on the laws of gravity in the larger scales of the universe. More generally, it could help researchers to see details of our galaxy and universe that are invisible to other telescopes.

There are still many mysterious cosmics that we must solve. And some of the answers could come from an extensive set of dishes in South Africa and Australia.

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