With its large surface and wide-angle camera, the telescope is capable of exploring vast cosmic objects.

The telescope is primarily used to study interstellar clouds, star nurseries, galaxies, and black hole jets.

Due to its large surface in the shape of a bowl and 420 panels adjusted to a precision of 55 micrometres, the IRAM is one of the most sensitive single dish radio telescopes in the world.

[1] The telescope can be pointed towards a celestial source, allowing astronomers to build up radio images of complete galaxies or regions of star formations.

The IRAM 30-meter telescope also produced the first high-resolution radio observations of the heart of the Milky Way galaxy and its black hole named Sagittarius A* in 1995 along with the NOEMA.