Did You Know? - The "brain" of one of the world's most powerful radio telescopes is hidden inside a giant, high-tech bunker in Northern Cape, South African - South African Radio Astronomy Observatory

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Known as the KAPB (Karoo Array Processor Building), this facility at SARAO is more than just a server room—it’s a marvel of engineering designed to protect the MeerKAT telescope from itself.

Here’s why the KAPB is so incredible:

The Ultimate Shield: Because the telescope’s 64 dishes are sensitive enough to pick up a cell phone signal from Jupiter, the KAPB is built as a massive Faraday Cage. It is wrapped in steel and partially buried underground to prevent the “electronic noise” from its own computers from interfering with the stars.
A Supercomputing Powerhouse: It houses the correlator, a specialized supercomputer that stitches together data from all 64 dishes to create a single, crystal-clear image of the universe.
Data on Blast: The amount of data flowing through the KAPB is staggering—at peak operation, it processes data at rates comparable to a significant portion of the entire world’s internet traffic!