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.

The next MeerKAT Site Public Open Day is on 25 March 2020! To provide members of the public the opportunity to visit MeerKAT, and the other radio astronomy instruments located on the Karoo site, SARAO will be hosting up to three Public Open Days per year, during the government school holidays. To book for 25 March 2020 click below.

First radio image of distant Milky Way-like galaxies reveals star formation history of the Universe

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 2019 Big Data Africa School was hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), from 6 to 16 October 2019, at the Lagoon Beach Hotel in Cape Town.

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.

An international team of astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope has discovered enormous balloon-like structures that tower hundreds of light-years above and below the centre of our galaxy.

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.)

The international engineering consortium tasked with planning the Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) of the SKA Radio Telescope has formally completed its work, another crucial step towards the construction of the world’s largest radio telescope.

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

South African Radio Astronomy Observatory announces selection of 38 South African-led projects that will use the MeerKAT 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.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has welcomed the adoption of the Integrated Environmental Management Plan (IEMP) for phase one of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in South Africa.

On Friday, 22 March 2019 the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Ms Nomvula Mokonyane, gazetted the adoption of the Integrated Environmental Management Plan (IEMP) for the Square Kilometre Array Phase 1 Mid-Frequency Array (SKA1_MID) in South Africa.

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