IDIA Science Projects
IDIA primarily supports data-intensive astronomy projects at partner universities and provides infrastructure for MeerKAT science, including MeerKAT’s large survey projects and South African-led Open Time projects.
Supporting MeerKAT Science
IDIA provides data-intensive infrastructure, research support and cloud-hosted processing environments for MeerKAT science. Data-intensive astronomy projects are selected for support through a formal process and aligned with scientific and capacity-development priorities at the IDIA partner universities.
Besides the IDIA Science Projects, IDIA supports five of the eight MeerKAT Large Survey Projects (LSPs) on ilifu: MHONGOOSE, ThunderKAT, Fornax, LADUMA and MIGHTEE. IDIA also supports South African-led Open Time MeerKAT projects where local leadership and capacity development are central.
Capacity Focus
Under the agreement between IDIA and SARAO, all South African-led Open Time projects are eligible to apply for support on ilifu.
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Recent research and science-related news from the IDIA site.
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IDIA Science Projects
A Transient IDIA
Principal Investigators: Patrick Woudt, Rob Fender and Paul Groot.
This project combines radio transient work with ThunderKAT on MeerKAT and simultaneous optical coverage from MeerLICHT. MeerLICHT follows MeerKAT on the sky, creating an optical-radio synoptic survey with raw data transported to IDIA for processing and storage.
HIPPO: HELP-IDIA Panchromatic Project
Principal Investigators: Mattia Vaccari and Lucia Marchetti
HIPPO creates a cloud-based environment where radio maps and other astronomical catalogues can be combined with optical, infrared and X-ray observations. The project supports source extraction, matching, classification and visualisation for MeerKAT extragalactic surveys.
Data Intensive Astronomy with LADUMA
Principal Investigators: Sarah Blyth, Andrew Baker and Benne Holwerda.
LADUMA studies galaxy evolution by detecting neutral hydrogen gas in distant galaxies, looking back nearly 8 billion years in cosmic time. The work includes calibration, imaging, radio-frequency interference handling and continuum subtraction tests on MeerKAT data.
HI Intensity Mapping
Principal Investigators: Mario Santos
MeerKLASS, “MeerKAT Large Area Synoptic Survey”, is a MeerKAT project aiming to cover about 10,000 square degrees of the Southern sky, to probe cosmology using intensity maps of neutral hydrogen and deliver wide continuum images for studies of galaxies, clusters, and slow transients. Work on IDIA includes calibration, simulations and theoretical forecasts, with MeerKAT data processed through cloud-hosted pipelines.
Wide-field Very Long Baseline Interferometry
Principal Investigator: Roger Deane.
VLBI combines radio antennas across the planet into an Earth-sized telescope. The IDIA-supported work focuses on calibration, imaging and analytics of VLBI datasets, including AI-driven techniques for future MeerKAT and SKA wide-field surveys.
How Galaxies Form and Evolve
Principal Investigator: Erwin de Blok.
The MHONGOOSE study maps hydrogen gas in 30 nearby galaxies with unprecedented sensitivity, using MeerKAT to probe galactic structure, gas flows and the connection between galaxies and the cosmic web.
MeerKAT Open Time projects
Researchers from IDIA partner universities, especially junior researchers, have been highly successful in gaining MeerKAT observing time for new science projects. This creates more opportunities for young scientists, more discoveries, and more large datasets needing powerful research infrastructure.
Computational Astrophysics and Machine Learning at IDIA
Computational astrophysics and machine learning (ML) are a major focus area within IDIA, combining artificial intelligence, advanced statistics, and high-performance computing to unlock discovery from the vast data streams produced by modern telescopes such as MeerKAT, the SKAO and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Through ilifu and collaborations across the IDIA partner universities, researchers are developing innovative techniques for anomaly detection, galaxy classification, and automated data analysis that will be essential for next-generation astronomy.
At UWC, the Computational Astrophysics and Machine Intelligence Lab (CAMIL) is pioneering human-machine collaborative approaches to finding rare and unexpected objects hidden within millions of galaxies. Using the open-source Astronomaly platform and the large-scale computing power of ilifu, researchers are applying AI-driven methods to reveal unusual galaxies, strong gravitational lenses, and other scientifically valuable discoveries in massive astronomical datasets.
Highlighted Science Images
Contact us for full resolution images at communications@idia.ac.za.