                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2022 February 2

                  The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT
    Image Credit: Ian Heywood (Oxford U.), SARAO; Color Processing: Juan
                          Carlos Munoz-Mateos (ESO)

   Explanation: What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to
   tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by
   intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light, though, such as
   radio, the galactic center can be imaged and shows itself to be quite
   an interesting and active place. The featured picture shows the latest
   image of our Milky Way's center by the MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes
   in South Africa. Spanning four times the angular size of the Moon (2
   degrees), the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed. Many
   known sources are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix
   of Sgr, since the galactic center is in the direction of the
   constellation Sagittarius. In our Galaxy's Center lies Sgr A, found
   here in the image center, which houses the Milky Way's central
   supermassive black hole. Other sources in the image are not as well
   understood, including the Arc, just to the left of Sgr A, and numerous
   filamentary threads. Goals for MeerKAT include searching for radio
   emission from neutral hydrogen emitted in a much younger universe and
   brief but distant radio flashes.

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