Message from the Chief Scientist, Dr Fernando Camilo – SARAO Anniversary Report
MeerKAT has put South Africa on the world map of radio astronomy. The image of the Galactic Centre shared at its inauguration in July 2018 was beautiful, but it was not science — rather it held great promise of things to come. One year later, science based on the full array started flowing, slowly at first, and more recently at an accelerating pace — 40% of the 243 refereed articles to date containing MeerKAT data have been accepted or published in the last year. This report provides some examples of the unexpected and wonderful science already enabled by the telescope. MeerKAT’s early scientific impact has also been recognised by the Royal Astronomical Society of London with its 2023 Group Achievement Award in Astronomy to the MeerKAT Team.
MeerKAT’s productivity to date is based on a minority of the approved projects, and we look expectantly to the discoveries to be made by its worldwide user community. Many of those will rely on latterly introduced capabilities: today’s telescope, which continues to be developed, is vastly more capable in terms of receivers, correlator modes, and user-supplied backends compared to its inauguration, and even more compared to its First Light in 2016. First Light was based on 16 dishes and the now retired ROACH2 correlator — retired from MeerKAT duty but not from the leading edge of astronomy: it is a little appreciated fact that the ROACH2 board, designed in South Africa, is a vital component of the Event Horizon Telescope that made the first ever image of a black hole in 2019 — yet another remarkable achievement enabled in part by the team that built MeerKAT. On behalf of those who use MeerKAT to carry out scientific investigations, we recognise the vision, ingenuity, and perseverance of innumerable colleagues across South Africa over the past 20 years, and the continued dedication of SARAO staff, without whom this exciting journey would not be possible.
Fernando Camilo
Chief Scientist, SARAO
