“It’s not a new concept, but now is the time,” says Justin Jonas, associate director for science and engineering with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) South Africa Project. With optical fibers replacing satellite communications dishes, radio astronomers around the world are converting the obsolete dishes into telescopes. Many dishes across Africa, for example, have been identified as conversion candidates, and one in Ghana is set to go forward. The UK’s Goonhilly Earth Station, which in 1962 received the first transatlantic television broadcasts, is getting a makeover. Other recent or planned retrofits can be found in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and elsewhere.

“Adding one telescope doesn’t make a scientific revolution, but if you could double the number [in the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (EVN)], that would revolutionize our field,” says Huib van Langevelde, director of the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, based in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands. “Our images...

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