A new telescope shows the center of the Milky Way in dazzling, fiery detail
A new telescope shows the center of the Milky Way in dazzling, fiery detail There is a new radio telescope up and running based in Karoo, South Africa. The MeerKAT (Karoo Array Telescope), as it’s named, operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, is already producing brilliant images of the super massive black hole that is at our galaxy’s center, 25,000 light years away. That center is obscured from view when using traditional methods of observation; it’s behind the constellation Sagittarius, where clouds of gas and dust hide it from view. However, MeerKAT's radio wavelengths penetrate the obscuring dust and open a window into this distinctive region and its black hole.
