The huge telescope setting a deep space record
A million new galaxies have been discovered and in a record-breaking time, paving the way to new discoveries -- thanks to a powerful and enormous new telescope in the Australian outback.
The country's national science agency said on Tuesday that what's called the "Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder" was able to map about three million galaxies in just 300 hours. A feat that would have taken up to 10 years in the past.
The telescope has a wide field of view, thanks to receivers designed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which allow it to take panoramic pictures of the sky in greater detail than before.
The telescope only needed to combine 903 images to map the sky, compared with the tens of thousands required by other all-sky radio surveys.
In addition to the new galaxies discovered, the telescope is also being heralded because its rapid surveys mean that the process can be repeated in a relatively short space of time.
This allows astronomers to systematically track changes in the cosmos.
