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Earlier today, South Africa unveiled its new super radio telescope, a 64-platter instrument dubbed MeerKAT. Built by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), MeerKAT is stationed in the semi-arid Karoo region in northern Cape Town, and is part of a mega-scientific project aimed at unlocking the secrets of the universe, reports . ] Reuters .
According to the SARAO, each of the 64 dishes or antennas of MeerKAT is 13.5 meters wide (just over 44 feet). These antennas "provide 2,000 pairs of unique antennas, far more than any comparable telescope" and are designed to operate on four cryogenic receivers, the former operating between 900 MHz and 1670 MHz.
This magnificent radio telescope is The Square Kilometer Array (SKA), in the early 2020s.
Upon completion of the SKA, it will have 2,000 radio antennas installed in South Africa and South Africa. Western Australia, especially in the Murchison Shire. If you think that's awesome, Gizmodo notes that the SKA could end up with 1,000 additional dishes located in other African countries.
Spread over an area of one square kilometer (0.4 square miles), the breathtaking SKA should be 50 times more powerful than any other telescope and help astronomers visualize the inaccessible areas of the planet. 39 deep space "with unprecedented details", reports Phys.org .
"The telescope is the largest of its kind in the world – with a quality of image resolution exceeding the Hubble Space Telescope by a factor of 50 times," said the vice president of the 39. South Africa, David Mabuza
SKA MeerKAT precursor telescope inaugurated in South Africa https://t.co/7h3TuLzRUR pic.twitter.com/n281Kp8kkD
– Varsity TimesSA (@VTimessa ) July 13, 2018
The merger of the two telescopes is planned for about 2023. Until that date, the MeerKAT radio-telescope will work independently – and is already on a good start.
Developed for the purpose of finding answers to "some of the key scientific issues in modern astrophysics", such as galaxy formation and evolution, "MeerKAT is the best in the world" to get the job done, said Fernando Camilo, chief scientist at SARAO.
The 4.4-billion-rand ($ 330-million) telescope made its inauguration by slamming an incredible photo of the Milky Way, which offers "the clearest view yet" of the center of our galaxy, shows the website from SKA.
The newly released image captures the region surrounding Sagittarius A, the supermbadive black hole in the heart of the galaxy. Lying 250,000 light years from Earth and hidden behind the constellation Sagittarius, this supermbadive black hole is impenetrable for ordinary telescopes, who can not look through the clouds of gas and dust that lighten it. constantly envelop. epic image of the galactic center: //gizmodo.com/new-south-african-telescope-releases-epic-image-of-the-1827572028 pic.twitter.com/psGV0rE2go
– Gizmodo ( @Gizmodo) July 13, 2018
Commenting on the photo, Camilo pointed out that the purpose of the exercise was to show the world what the scientific capabilities of MeerKAT really are
"The center of the galaxy was obvious target: unique, visually striking and full of unexplained phenomena – but also notoriously difficult to image using radio telescopes.Although the early days of MeerKAT are still coming and that there is still a lot to to do, we decided to go there – and we were stunned by the results. "
Described as" remarkable "by Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, world expert enigmatic filamentary structures that only appear near of Sagittarius A, the present image of numerous s known features, such as supernova remnants and star formation regions, as well as elements never seen before. According to Yusef-Zadeh, who is affiliated with Northwestern University in Illinois, some of these features could serve as a basis for discovering the mystery of the filaments.
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