Johannesburg – South African scientists revealed today the clearest image ever taken of the center of the Milky Way, occupied by a huge black hole, thanks to a new radio telescope called MeerKAT.
“The centre of the galaxy was an obvious target: unique, visually striking and full of unexplained phenomena – but also notoriously hard to image using radio telescopes … Although it’s early days with MeerKAT, and a lot remains to be optimised, we decided to go for it – and were stunned by the results.” Fernando Camilo , chief scientist of the South African Observatory of Radioastronomy (SARAO, for its acronym in English).
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The center of the Milky Way is 25,000 light years from Earth, behind the Sagittarius constellation, and is permanently enveloped in clouds of gas and dust, which makes it invisible from our planet to normal telescopes.
However, infrared technology, Xrays and radio waves can penetrate the obstacles and open a window to the black hole of 4 million solar masses (a solar mass is a unit of measurement equivalent to the mass of the sun). The sun is located in the center of the galaxy.
Although it’s early days with MeerKAT, and a lot remains to be optimised, we decided to go for it – and were stunned by the results.” said Camilo, according to the text published by the SKA Africa project, dedicated to the construction of radio telescopes.
The center of the Milky Way is 25,000 light years from Earth. (GFR Media)
The SKA, which is part of the MeerKAT, is a project involving eleven countries Germany, Australia, Canada, China, Holland, India, Italy, New Zealand, United Kingdom, South Africa and Sweden – and in which they collaborate another twenty, including Spain.
The goal is to build in Australia and South Africa the largest radio telescope in the world, which can capture images with a resolution 50 times higher than those taken by Hubble, in what is one of the greatest scientific and technological challenges in history.
The MeerKAT, whose construction lasted a decade and is one of the precursors of the SKA, was officially inaugurated today at a ceremony attended by the vice president of South Africa, David Mabuza, and operates from the semi-arid region of Karoo, in the province of Cabo North (northwest).
It is currently the most powerful telescope in the southern hemisphere of the planet and has 64 parabolic antennas of 13.5 meters in diameter each.
