By Ed Stoddard
SUTHERLAND, South Africa (Reuters) – Huge white domes make a jarring sight amid the landscape of South Africa’s arid Karoo region.
Perched on a wind-swept hilltop, they house telescopes of different shapes and sizes that search the star-filled skies in this remote corner of the Earth for the secrets of the universe.
Those skies will soon be scanned by a super scope that will probe far deeper into space than any of its neighbors — the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which will be 12 yards in diameter.
“This is for deep space observation,” said Hitesh Gajjar, an electrical engineer involved in the project, as he pointed with pride at SALT — a massive hexagon filled with 91 smaller mirrored hexagons, of which 18 are in place.
SALT will enable scientists to view stars and galaxies a billion times too faint to be visible to the naked eye. The official Web site says that is as about as faint as a candle’s flame on the moon.
This is a very good opportunity to explore the universe further.
[trek_mode]Can we see Kronos through this thing?[/trek_mode]
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