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The MeerKAT radio telescope network is finally operational in South Africa after a decade of design and construction. To show what the facility can do, astronomers have pointed all 64 antennas to the center of the Milky Way, and have taken one of the clearest photos of the mysterious region.
MeerKAT consists of 64 dishes each measuring 13.5 m (44.3 ft) in diameter, spaced 8 km (5 mi) apart and distributed in the dusty Karoo region of South Africa. It is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and is only the first phase of Square Kilometer Array, a project that will eventually form the world's largest telescope with facilities in Africa and in Australia.
show the scientific capabilities of this new instrument, "says Fernando Camilo, chief scientist of SARAO. "The center of the galaxy was an obvious target: unique, visually striking and full of unexplained phenomena – but also notoriously difficult to image using radio telescopes. Thanks for the first days with MeerKAT, and much remains to be optimized, we decided to go "
The center of the Milky Way is hard to see from Earth, thanks to thick clouds of dust and gas, but radio telescopes are able to see through With 64 antennas formed on the area representing 2,000 unique eye pairs, MeerKAT was able to capture the region with unprecedented detail.
The final result of MeerKAT's sightings is a panoramic shot covering an area of 39; approximately 1000 light-years per 500 light-years The colors show the strength of the received radio signals, ranging from red for low emissions, to orange, then yellow, to white for sources most
Unsurprisingly, the brightest part of the picture is the one surrounding the supermbadive black hole in the very center of the galaxy. Other bright spots indicate supernova remnants and star formation regions, some of which have never been pictured before, while others are simply seen more clearly than by the past.
The other key feature is the magnetized "filament" structures that shine like radio signals. These formations do not seem to exist anywhere else in the galaxy, and although they were discovered for the first time in the 1980s, we still do not know much about them.
"The MeerKAT image has such clarity," says Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, an astronomer at Northwestern University. "It shows so many features never before seen, including compact sources badociated with some of the filaments, that it could provide the key to deciphering the code and solving this three-decade enigma."
This is not the first image of MeerKAT. Two years ago, the network revealed more than 1,300 new galaxies in a single parcel of sky, using only 16 of its antennas. Now that MeerKAT is properly operational, it will scan the southern hemisphere sky for gravitational wave signals, pulsar signals and may even contribute to the search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Source: Square Kilometer Africa Array
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