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What did Karl Jansky’s antenna reveal about the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy?
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Radio telescope
Lovell Telescope, a fully steerable radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England.
In 1931, American engineer Karl Jansky discovered that an unidentified source of radio interference originated from outer space. By the following spring, he determined that the source of this cosmic radio radiation lay in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.12
It is a common misconception that Jansky immediately identified the source as the galactic centre; while he correctly pinpointed the direction, it was later confirmed by Grote Reber that this radiation was indeed emanating from the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. Jansky’s pioneering work in detecting these radio waves inaugurated the field of radio astronomy.12