Scientists have announced that the biggest telescope has began capturing cosmic rays of the universe that would give mankind its farthest peek into the Universe.
The “Cherenkov” telescope has the size of two lawn tennis courts and is the biggest of its kind based in Namibia, Africa.
Cherenkov-HESS-II telescope is situated about 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the Namibian capital Windhoek.
The 600-tonne telescope structure with its 28-metre (92-feet) mirror will be observing the most violent and extreme phenomena of the universe in very high energy gamma rays.
It “not only provides the largest mirror area among instruments of this type worldwide, but also resolves the cascade images at unprecedented detail, with four times more pixels per sky area compared to the smaller telescopes”, Pascal Vincent, one of the scientists, said in a statement released Thursday in Europe.
Successful commissioning of the HESS II telescope represents a big step forward … for the astronomical community as a whole and for southern Africa as a prime location for this field of astronomy,” said Werner Hofmann of Germany’s Max Planck Institute.
South Africa in May secured the right to co-host with Australia the world’s biggest super radio telescope that would give mankind its farthest peek into the Universe, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Namibian first HESS observatory has been in operation for almost 10 years and run by more than 170 scientists from 12 different countries including South Africa, Germany, France, Britain and Australia.
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