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The 64 MeerKAT radio antennas located in the Northern Cape produced an astounding picture of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, largely thanks to the expertise and servers made available by the University. of Rhodes
. coincides with the official launch of the MeerKAT Precursor Matrix, dramatically showing how incredibly active the center of our galaxy is. Dominated by a supermbadive black hole, the area is a maelstrom of supernova remnants, radio filaments and new star formations hidden behind large clouds of dust and gas.
The Earth is about 25,000 light-years away. The center of the galaxy is invisible to optical telescopes, but radio waves pbad through the dust, making the MeerKAT image spectacular.
Justin Jonas, a professor at Rhodes University, as the project's chief technologist, has played a key role in developing the MeerKAT network since its inception and will continue to oversee specialized construction operations.
He qualifies the inauguration of MeerKAT as "game changer" which is the largest scientific infrastructure in Africa.
He points out that his colleagues and former students of Rhodes University played a central role in the MeerKAT network which is in turn a precursor project of the Square Kilometers Array (SKA) radio telescope.
SKA is a South African and Australian radio astronomy telescope that Jonas describes as the largest science project in the southern hemisphere. Centered near Carnavon in the North Cape, SKA will have dishes in several sub-Saharan countries as well as a specialized network in Western Australia.
It will be used to search for the elusive dark matter that, according to astronomers, constitutes the largest part of Jonah said that MeerKAT is the largest radio telescope in its clbad in the world, and that the SKA will be considerably larger that the combined zone of his world and the most intriguing of all, Jonah said that the painting could identify extraterrestrial civilizations
He added that the recently completed FAST telescope in China is the largest single-dish telescope in the world with a diameter of 500 meters – eclipsing the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the 13.5-meter range of MeerKAT dishes. Jonas explained that FAST and SKA will not compete because they will specialize in different tasks. In addition, as one is in the southern hemisphere and the other in the northern hemisphere, they will be complementary in many ways.
Jonah is proud of the South African contribution to the project. Although there have been substantial contributions from abroad, SKA is largely funded, designed and built locally. He says the project has achieved its local content goals of 75%.
Jonas stated that SKA took the quest for extraterrestrial life seriously. They are negotiating with an American organization involved in the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project on the deployment of instruments dedicated to this task.
He stated that SKA would put all raw data signals available to anyone at the telescope array and in this way they will be able to monitor incoming radio signals from another civilization. There will be no specific observations dedicated to SETI but all large amounts of data will be available for this purpose.
He is not sure that he will find extraterrestrial information, but if we do, he pauses in fear "
Jonah said that it would change" our human understanding of our position in the universe. I mean, for the moment, we are fighting for small borders, for countries and we have those terribly nationalistic and selfish opinions of who we are, you know, but as soon as there is One of them … "
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