A new 64-antenna facility, which will be the largest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, is being built thanks to a collaboration between Breakthrough Listen and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO). The MeerKAT telescope will provide data almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two years, increasing the number of stars we observe 1,000 times.
Breakthrough Listen’s Project Scientist Dr. “I’m very excited to search for technosignatures in space using one of the world’s most advanced telescopes,” says Cherry Ng. The MeerKAT telescope allows us to observe the signals of a radio transmitter 250 light-years away.”
This search will complement work with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in the US, the Parkes Telescope in Australia and other telescopes around the world. Both GBT and Parkes used moving antennas that had to be pointed at targets. MeerKAT does not need such a system.
Breakthrough Listen Principal Investigator Dr. “MeerKAT consists of 64 satellite dishes that can see an area of the sky 50 times larger than GBT can see at once,” says Andrew Siemion. “Such a wide field of view typically contains many interesting stars with techno-signed targets. Our new supercomputer combines signals from 64 dishes, allowing us to obtain high-resolution scans of these targets with excellent precision.”
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