Submillimeter array
The Submillimeter Array (SMA) is a radio interferometer for astronomical observations at frequencies from 180 to 900 GHz .
The SMA consists of 8 radio telescopes, each with an antenna diameter of 6 meters, at a location at a height of 4080 m at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii . The individual telescopes can be transported to different locations, which result in baselines between 2 telescopes between 9 and 500 meters. Depending on the frequency, this results in a spatial resolution of up to 0.1 ″. Receivers for frequencies around 230, 345 and 690 GHz are currently (2008) available.
The eight telescopes of the SMA can also be interferometrically connected to the two individual submillimeter telescopes on Mauna Kea - James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (15 m) and Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (10.4 m) - to form the extended SMA (eSMA). This combination achieves a higher sensitivity due to the two larger telescopes and, due to the longer baselines (up to 783 m), also higher resolution, but is limited to frequencies around 230 and 345 GHz.
The SMA was the first radio interferometer designed for observations below a mm wavelength and was officially put into operation in November 2003. It was developed, built and operated in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Taiwanese Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics .
As a radio interferometer for the millimeter and submillimeter range, the SMA enables high-resolution observations, e.g. B. from the heat emission of the dust around young stars or in galaxies, and from the spectral lines of many different molecules.
It is part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project and was one of the telescopes of the worldwide network of eight radio telescopes, with which in 2017 (published in April 2019) the first direct images of a black hole (the supermassive black hole in M87 ) were obtained.
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Coordinates: 19 ° 49 ′ 27.4 ″ N , 155 ° 28 ′ 40.7 ″ W.