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Scientists from South Africa last week revealed the sharpest image at the center of the Milky Way thanks to a new radio telescope called MeerKAT ]
"The center of the galaxy was an obvious target: unique, visually stunning and full of unexplained phenomena, but it is also notoriously difficult to be photographed with radio telescopes. ", did he declare. The Chief Scientist of the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory ( Sarao ), Fernando Camilo .
The center of the Milky Way is 25,000 light-years away from our planet; and in addition to being behind the constellation Sagittarius, it is constantly enveloped in clouds of gas and dust, making it invisible to normal telescopes pointing to the sky from Earth.
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The image has a surface of a thousand light-years by 500 light-years, with a clear region in its middle: the center of the galaxy . "Although they are the first days with MeerKAT (…) we are surprised at the results," said Camilo
The MerKAT
- operates from the Karoo area, in the province of Cano South Africa .
- It is the most powerful telescope in the southern hemisphere of the planet
- It has 64 satellite dishes of 13.5 meters in diameter each.
- It is part of an even larger project, called SKA in which eleven countries participate: Germany, Australia, Canada, China, Holland, India, Italy, New Zealand, United Kingdom , South Africa and Sweden;
- The objective is that the SKA be the largest radio telescope in the world and that it be raised in Australia and in South Africa . This one will be able to capture images with a resolution 50 times higher than those already taken.
- The construction of MeerKAT lasted a decade and its inauguration took place last Friday, beginning with the image of the center of the Milky Way .
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