Square Kilometer Array, South Africa | 2016 May 24
As astronomers gather to discuss scientific potential of MeerKAT, the telescope being built in the Karoo produces its first remarkable image.
... MeerKAT, a project of Square Kilometre Array South Africa (SKA SA), which is overseen by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), will be made up of 64 dishes spread over a diameter of 8 kilometres in the Northern Cape, 90 kilometres northwest of Carnarvon. When completed by late next year, it will be one of the world's most powerful scientific instruments. Eventually MeerKAT will be integrated into the even more powerful SKA telescope. ...
Image 1 from test observation done with 4 MeerKAT dishes on 14 May 2016. More than 50 radio sources (white dots) are visible in this 1 square degree panorama (corresponding to 5 times the area of the Moon). Unlike an ordinary picture of the sky that mainly shows stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy, these dots arise from galaxies in the distant universe emitting radio waves at a frequency of 1400 MHz (15 times the frequency of FM radio stations).
Image 2 overlaid with yellow ellipses indicating radio sources detected in a similar observation done with KAT-7 (a 7-dish precursor to MeerKAT, also located in the Karoo); and green ellipses showing radio sources detected in the Australian SUMMS survey of the Southern sky. Some of the yellow ellipses are resolved into two green counterparts, showing that the 4-dish test observation produces sharper images than possible with KAT-7. Some of the white dots do not have a green or yellow counterpart, indicating that this commissioning image obtained with 4 MeerKAT dishes has already detected previously unknown radio galaxies.
Please note that these are not First Light Images of MeerKAT but rather Test Images.
