Well.., I've been more busy with writing code lately so that the first question coming to mind was, how many bytes is an array of one square kilometer? And I assume it's a two-dimensional array.
We're still in technological phase where ADCs are far more advanced than storage and online processing systems, which means throwing away a lot. But I have high hopes for a system where you upgrade computing, network, storage (and maybe ADCs...) and you get an improved sensor. Throw man-hours at some GPU kernel developers and you get new science. The limit seems more now about enough people and compute to fully exploit the data than technological...
This is also an interesting development:
Also, for direct down conversion, you can get better mirror frequency rejection by oversampling and filtering in software.
It's also before coffee, so my logic might not be right for basic math yet
However, there's much more that's not visible from the road. Hidden behind the trees, MRAO has a prototype SKA-Low array (from before the full installation in Australia), and three dishes from a HERA prototype.
The MRAO itself has a fascinating history, notably including the discovery of the first pulsar by Jocelyn Bell using the wonderfully named Interplanetary Scintillation Array, which consisted of over four thousand dipole antennas spread across nine acres. In WWI the site was a mustard gas factory, with train station and sidings. The train tracks have long since gone, but the station building remains. Inside hangs a large, coloured but faded image titled "GALACTIC RADIO EMISSION AT 38 Mc/s". This appears to be a coloured visualisation based upon the black & white figure in pages 654-655 of a 1957 paper [0].
The above 1957 paper illustrates a survey of half the celestial sphere at 38 MHz. In comparison, this specific MeerKAT image from the article [1] appears to be a 1.28 GHz measurement focusing on the galactic center (6.5 square degrees) [2]. So it's not a 100% like-for-like comparison, but interesting nonetheless to see how much the detail has improved in the past ~70 years!
[0] https://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1957MNRAS.117..652B ("RESULTS OF A SURVEY OF GALACTIC RADIATION AT 38 Mc/s")
[1] https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-02-...
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.10541 ("The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic")
The article talks about HERA; MRAO hosts the prototype for that. IIRC, they experimented with methods to build the dishes with off-the-shelf parts - such as drainpipes to build the ring.
I don't understand how this isn't the biggest news in astronomy. Gigantic filaments of energy passing through the milky way
qwertytyyuu•1w ago