Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
More than 2 years into its construction, SKA-Low, the international SKA Observatory’s telescope in remote Australia, has revealed its first image of the universe.
Although it appears to be just pinpricks of light resembling stars, the image is in fact of 85 of the brightest known galaxies in the region of space, all of which contain supermassive black holes.
The area of sky captured is equivalent to approximately 100 full Moons – or roughly the area of sky that a small apple would cover if you held it at arm’s length.
But SKA-Low Lead Commissioning Scientist, Dr George Heald, says that these bright galaxies are just the tip of the iceberg.
“The quality of this image was even beyond what we hoped for using such an early version of the telescope,” says Heald.
“With the full telescope we will have the sensitivity to reveal the faintest and most distant galaxies, back to the early Universe when the first stars and galaxies started to form.
“This is technically difficult work and the first step to unlocking the awesome science that will be possible.”
Construction of SKA-Low is currently ongoing on at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.
The initial image was produced using data collected from the first 4 connected SKA-Low stations, comprised of 1,024 antennas spread over less than 6km.
“The process of making this image was also important for telescope ‘commissioning’ – a critical process for ensuring the telescope was working as intended,” says Heald.
“In producing this image, we also confirmed that the stations are ‘hooked up’ properly, the timing systems are lined up, we can calibrate the data correctly and that the details of the system are understood at a high level.”
The addition of another 16,000 antennas in the next 18 months or so will make SKA-Low the most sensitive radio telescope of its kind in the world and enable it to detect more than 4,500 galaxies in the same area of the sky.
“As the telescopes grow, and more stations and dishes come online, we’ll see the images improve in leaps and bounds and start to realise the full power of the SKAO,” says Professor Philip Diamond, Director-General of SKAO.
Once construction is completed, the full SKA-Low telescope will include more than 130,000 antennas spread over 74km. Deep surveys performed of this area of the sky from 2030 will reveal up to 600,000 galaxies.
