The world's most sensitive radio telescope takes a look at our local supermassive black hole

A multi-year project to explore the universe in new ways is one more step toward completion. South Africa has finally commissioned a very sensitive radio telescope called MeerKAT, which is part of a global project called Square Kilometer Array. With MeerKAT online, scientists can scan the sky and look through the dust and gas obscuring the view of traditional telescopes. To show what the chart can do, the researchers published the above image of the Milky Way's core. Yes, it's a black hole.

MeerKAT includes 64 dishes each 13.5 meters in diameter. Because he sees in radio frequencies instead of the visual spectrum, he can collect data from objects that are hidden in clouds of dust and gas. Parts of the instrument have collected such data since construction began in 2016, but only now the instrument is at full power. The image above is the first captured with the full MeerKAT chart.

This image represents the center of our galaxy, home to a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A * (pronounced Sagittarius A Star). Being in the galactic plane as we are, it is difficult to collect data on this object in the visual spectrum. MeerKAT uses a technique called interferometry, allowing all the separate dishes to act as a single instrument. Each of them collects weak and infinitely weak radio signals from the sky so that they can be combined and filtered to produce data that astronomers can use.

One of the 64 MeerKAT dishes in South Africa

The brilliant central light of the first MeerKAT image is Sagittarius A * at 25,000 light-years away. Around it are other intense radio sources like supernova remnants and star formation regions closer to the center of the galaxy. As for these filaments everywhere in the picture, it's a bit of a mystery. They exist only near Sagittarius A *, but they could be a feature of all supermassive black holes seen from relatively close.

The integration of MeerKAT with other Square Kilometer Array instruments will not begin until 2020. The project, which will cover large tracts of land in South Africa and Australia, will eventually become the most great radio telescope in the world. As its name indicates, the goal is to have one square kilometer of the total area of ​​the collection. The project could be completed by 2022. MeerKAT will carry out observations over several months.