South Africa launches world's largest radio telescope, "MeerKAT"

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South Africa has launched a 64-dish largest radio telescope in Carnarvon in the Northern Cape
South Africa has launched a 64-dish largest radio telescope in Carnarvon in the Northern Cape

New Delhi : South Africa has launched a 64-dish largest radio telescope in Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Named as “MeerKAT”, it is believed to be the world's largest radio telescope of its kind. The device has been initiated by South Africa’s Deputy President David Mabuza

MeerKAT is a precursor to the first phase of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project which aims to expose the secrets of space. Scientists expect that the SKA project will be made fully operational by late 2030 and will include about 3,000 dishes on an area of a square kilometer across remote landscape in several African countries and Australia. 

The radio telescope is believed to be 50 times more powerful and 10,000 times faster than other telescopes in the world. It will scan the sky with higher resolution quality than the Hubble Space telescope, according to the SKA, which will facilitate astronomers to get deeper insight of the space with incomparable details.

They built a telescope that is the best of its kind in the world. They have made an image of the very center, the core of our Milky Way galaxy, 30,000 light years away. The clearest sharpest image ever made, by anyone on earth," said Fernando Camilo, chief scientist of the SKA Africa project. 

Based in South Africa, the SKA project is an international cooperation with countries participating in the construction including Australia, Britain, Canada, China, India, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands and other African countries. It has been designed to explore exploding stars, black holes and traces of the universe's origins some 14 billion years ago.

Besides pioneering the astronomical research, MeerKAT is also approaching boundaries in big data and high-performance computing with the likes of IBM helping develop systems able to handle the dizzying amount of data fed from each individual antenna to supercomputers buried deep underground to limit radio interference, according to Reuters. 

Report says that the first phase of the SKA, which will see another 133 dishes or radio telescopes developed, built and erected in the Northern Cape, and the infrastructure phase of the SKA “should begin I believe, let's say, in about a year to two years’ time," said Takalani Nemaungani, chief director for astronomy in South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology.  

"This is a very significant project that sets the country on a path towards development. It's not South Africa alone that would benefit. All the countries that came together to contribute are going to benefit," said Mabuza.