CAPE TOWN, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO) announced on Wednesday that the growing SKA-Mid telescope array in South Africa has achieved "first fringes" using two of its dishes, which demonstrates its operation as an interferometer for the first time.
"This is the first true test that all our systems are working together, and that the SKA-Mid telescope is alive as a scientific instrument," SKAO Director-General Philip Diamond said in a statement.
"Having each dish observe the sky individually is an achievement, but having them operate in concert as one telescope is a much bigger technical challenge, and our teams have now achieved that milestone," he noted.
Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is a network of thousands of radio antennas of varying types and sizes, which includes SKA-Low in Western Australia and SKA-Mid in South Africa's Northern Cape.
The international project is jointly funded, built, and run by more than 10 countries, with China being one of the seven founding members and a signatory to the SKAO Convention signed in 2019.
Two of SKA-Mid's 15m-diameter dishes were used together to achieve the milestone result, observing a radio galaxy estimated to be around 2.6 billion light-years away.
"It confirms that all our hardware and software systems are working as we designed them to do, giving us confidence as we begin to commission the telescope," said Betsey Adams, SKA-Mid commissioning scientist.
SKA-Mid now has seven dish structures assembled on site in the Northern Cape, with a further 12 on their way from China. Once complete, the telescope will comprise 197 dishes, including the integration of the existing MeerKAT radio telescope built and operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory.
"With all we've learned from these months building up to first fringes, we're in a strong position to achieve our next milestone -- the first image from a four-dish array within the next few months -- and then to see SKA-Mid gradually grow in size and capabilities from there," SKA-Mid Senior Project Manager Ben Lewis added. Enditem.
