An Australian telescope used to broadcast live vision of man's first steps on the moon in 1969 has found hundreds of new galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way by using an innovative receiver that measures radio waves.
Scientists at the Parkes telescope, 355 km (220 miles) west of Sydney, said they had detected 883 galaxies, a third of which had never been seen before. The findings were reported in the latest issue of Astronomical Journal under the title 'The Parkes HI Zone of Avoidance Survey'.
"Hundreds of new galaxies were discovered, using the same telescope that was used to broadcast the TV pictures from Apollo 11," said Lister Staveley-Smith, a professor at the University of Western Australia's International Center for Radio Astronomy Research.
"The electronic technology at the back end is substantially different and that is why we can still keep using these old telescopes," he said.