The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has undertaken a local impact study of South Africa’s hosting of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). The HERA telescope is an array of 350 antennas situated next to the MeerKAT radio telescope on the site that hosts the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in the Northern Cape province.

Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory together with colleagues from 12 other countries have discovered a powerful megamaser – a radio-wavelength laser indicative of colliding galaxies. This is the most distant such megamaser found so far.

An international team of astronomers made the most detailed images of the largest cosmic shock wave visible from earth. These gigantic shock waves are much larger than our entire galaxy and they form when clusters of galaxies collide in what are the most energetic events after the Big Bang.

A group of radio astronomers led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics has conducted a multi-frequency and multi-band study of the Shapley Supercluster, where the formation of large structures is ongoing at the present cosmological age. Radio astronomers have discovered a radio emission that acts as a “bridge” between a cluster of galaxies and a group of galaxies.

An international team led by astronomers Professor Gyula Józsa, Professor Michelle Cluver, and Professor Thomas Jarrett has utilized the South African MeerKAT radio telescope to discover a mysterious chain of hydrogen gas clouds the size of a massive galaxy.

An international team led by a young South African researcher has just announced a comprehensive overview paper for the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS). The paper to be published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal presents some exciting, novel results, and is accompanied by the public release of a huge trove of curated data now available for astronomers worldwide to address a variety of challenging questions, such as those relating to the formation and evolution of galaxies throughout the universe.

ADASS is an annual conference striving to provide a forum for astronomers, computer scientists, software engineers, faculty members and students working in areas related to algorithms, software and systems for the acquisition, reduction, analysis, and dissemination of astronomical data.

The HERA telescope, an array of 350 antennas situated next to MeerKAT in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, is being built by a team of local artisans from the town of Carnarvon.

A group of 20 galaxies has been discovered with South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.

A new study using the MeerKAT radio telescope has produced a striking image showing a combination of cosmic features never before seen, revealing unexpected details of the inner workings of enormous radio galaxies.

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The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) hereby invites potential BBBEE partners to express interest in collaborating with SARAO in a BBBEE equity opportunity.

Using the sensitivity of one of the SKA precursor telescopes, a group of radio astronomers led by INAF explored the central regions of some globular clusters in search of very weak pulsars

The 2020 Africa Data Science Intensive (DSI) Programme was hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) in collaboration with AIMS South Africa, Grailabs and the University of Portsmouth as part of the UK-South Africa Newton Fund Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) Big Data programme, between September 2020 and January 2021.

Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa’s powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are amongst the largest single objects in the Universe and are thought to be quite rare.

The National Research Foundation, through its national facility the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), and the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) welcome the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) as an additional partner on the MeerKAT extension project (MeerKAT+).

Pretoria, South Africa, 1 June 2020 – South Africa, the future home of the SKA’s mid-frequency telescope, has ratified the Convention Establishing the SKA Observatory after the South African Parliament approved the Convention and Dr Naledi Pandor, Minister of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, signed the Instrument of Ratification.

An international team of astronomers has uncovered unusual features in the radio galaxy ESO 137-006 using MeerKAT data.

South Africa is currently under a COVID-19 lockdown for a period of 21 days until midnight on 16 April 2020. The lockdown involves significant restrictions of movement.

For the first time ever astronomers have detected the radiation stimulated by a “heat wave” of intense thermal energy from a massive new-born star, or so-called protostar.

Scientists using the MeerKAT radio telescope and the Southern African Large Telescope have combined forces for the first time to discover and identify a unique and previously-unseen flare of radio emission from a binary star in our Galaxy.

The Hydrogen and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX), led out of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), has deployed two new prototype telescope dish designs, one aluminium and the other fibreglass, at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) Hartebeesthoek in Gauteng.

Hydrogen gas (represented by green blobs) detected with SARAO’s MeerKAT radio telescope within and around the galaxy NGC 1316, visible at the centre of the image. The two hydrogen tails newly discovered with MeerKAT are visible in the upper and lower parts of the image (the curved arcs are added to guide the eye). Additional hydrogen clouds near NGC 1316 are also visible. The visible light image in the background is from the Fornax Deep Survey – a Dutch-Italian collaboration led by the University of Groningen and INAF – Naples – and was obtained with the VST telescope at the European Southern Observatory. (Adapted from results presented in Serra et al. 2019.)

International consortium of computing specialists complete the engineering design work of the Science Data Processor for the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) congratulates the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Consortium on capturing the first image of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of the distant galaxy Messier 87.

South Africa joins countries in signing treaty on the establishment of the SKAO as an intergovernmental legal entity