SARAO Science

SARAO (South African Radio Astronomy Observatory) is the national radio astronomy facility of South Africa. It operates and manages radio telescopes, including MeerKAT and the South African Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. SARAO is involved in a range of scientific research areas, including:

Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy: Studying the structure, formation, and evolution of galaxies and other celestial objects.
Pulsar Research: Observing and understanding pulsars, which are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars.
Cosmology: Investigating the large-scale structure of the universe, dark matter, and dark energy.
Transient Astronomy: Detecting and studying transient astronomical events such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and fast radio bursts.
Solar System Studies: Observing objects within our solar system, including the sun, planets, and smaller bodies like asteroids and comets.

SARAO’s instruments, particularly MeerKAT, provide astronomers with highly sensitive data, enabling groundbreaking research and discoveries across these various fields of astronomy.

KAT-7 Telescopes

KAT-7 Telescopes

Telescopes and Instruments – Share
The seven-dish MeerKAT precursor array, KAT-7, is the world’s first radio telescope array consisting of composite antenna structures.
Read More
Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Re-ionisation project (PAPER)

Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Re-ionisation project (PAPER)

Telescopes and Instruments – Share
The primary goal of PAPER is to detect emission from the neutral gas that pervaded the universe before the first galaxies and black holes were formed. This ‘epoch of reionization’, as it is called, is the last frontier in observational cosmology.
Read More
Geodesy Programme

Geodesy Programme

Projects Telescopes and Instruments – Share
Geodesy, also called geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal motion, tides, and polar motion.
Read More
MeerKAT Digitiser

MeerKAT Digitiser

Commercialisation Technologies Telescopes and Instruments – Share
The Digitiser is the sub-system of the MeerKAT telescope which is responsible for converting the signals received from outer space into a digital format that can be manipulated by digital processing platforms such as computers and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
Read More
Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX)

Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX)

Hartebeesthoek Johannesburg Observatory Telescopes and Instruments – Share
A future experiment on site will be the Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX). This radio telescope array will map a large area of the southern sky in radio continuum and HI, while being used to detect Fast Radio Bursts, over a frequency range of 400 – 800 MHz. It is currently in the early development stage, with a number of prototypes located at HartRAO. Construction of the first representative dish and infrastructure in...
Read More
The South African National Ventilator Project (NVP)

The South African National Ventilator Project (NVP)

Projects Telescopes and Instruments – Share
The South African National Ventilator Project (NVP) is a co-ordinated national effort in response to the Covid-19 pandemic involving the local design and manufacture of breathing apparatus devices used in patient treatment. Read more
Read More
26m and 15m telescopes at Hartebeesthoek

26m and 15m telescopes at Hartebeesthoek

Hartebeesthoek Johannesburg Observatory Telescopes and Instruments – Share
Hartebeesthoek is located 65 kilometers north-west of Johannesburg, just within the provincial boundary of Gauteng. The nearest town, Krugersdorp, is 32 km distant. The telescope is situated in an isolated valley which affords protection from terrestial interference.
Read More
MeerKAT Telescope

MeerKAT Telescope

Telescopes and Instruments – Share
MeerKAT is a radio interferometer located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa (at 30 deg South, 21 deg East) consisting of 64 dishes with baselines of up to 8 km. Its superb sensitivity, ~2000 baselines, centrally concentrated distribution (~3/4 of the dishes are located in a 1 km diameter core), substantial field of view (~1 deg FWHM at 1.4 GHz), and unblocked aperture design, make it uniquely suited to a variety of studies.
Read More
C-BASS C-Band All Sky Survey project

C-BASS C-Band All Sky Survey project

Telescopes and Instruments – Share
C-BASS is a project to map the sky in microwave (short-wavelength radio) radiation.
Read More
SKA-MPI

SKA-MPI

Losberg Northern Cape Telescopes and Instruments – Share
SKA-MPI is one of two prototype SKA dishes and funded by the German Max-Planck Society. It was built at the SARAO site in the Karoo. It has been used for early verification of the hardware and to support development of the SKA dishes. It is now being used to do a single-dish science programme.
Read More
South Africa’s HIRAX telescope driving industry engagements

South Africa’s HIRAX telescope driving industry engagements

Hartebeesthoek Johannesburg Observatory Telescopes and Instruments – Share
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. The fibreglass dish was designed and manufactured by MMS Technology in Pretoria, and the aluminium dish was designed and manufactured through a partnership between NJV Consulting and Rebcon in Durban. Funding for the HIRAX prototype...
Read More
VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS)

VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS)

Hartebeesthoek Johannesburg Observatory Telescopes and Instruments – Share
The International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) has been developing the next generation of VLBI system - VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS). They have identified the need for modern, fast slewing, broadband radio telescopes to realise the goal of improving accuracy by a factor of 10 - from 1 cm down to 1 mm - across global baselines.
Read More

arrow SARAO Users Committee
The SARAO Users Committee is established in order to advise the SARAO Managing Director and staff on all aspects of SARAO activities that affect the users and potential users of its facilities.

arrow Gallery
Image and video gallery

Did you know?

Building the SKA will require the development of cutting edge technology and innovation, including the design of the world’s fastest supercomputers to process data at rates greater than the current global internet traffic.

The SKA will use thousands of radio antennas, with different antenna technologies. This will enable astronomers to probe the universe in unprecedented detail. The SKA will also be able to survey the entire sky much faster than any radio astronomy facility currently in existence.