Supporting MeerKAT Science
In 2016, a workshop was organised by a collaboration of IDIA, SARAO, Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape and the University of KwaZulu-Natal to focus on the science that could be done with MeerKAT. At that time, eight MeerKAT Large Survey Projects (MLSPs) had already been nominated by SARAO for two thirds of MeerKAT’s first five years of operations. The MLSPs are ambitious scientific projects that require many hours of MeerKAT observations and open the door to entirely new scientific results.
In 2017, five of the MLSPs requested to use IDIA as their main data processing platform. In 2018, the first call for observing proposals for the remaining third of MeerKAT’s first five years of operations was issued by SARAO. Many researchers at IDIA partner universities were successful with their science proposals, and thus IDIA expects to become the platform of choice for most MeerKAT observations by those researchers and their collaborators.
IDIA-supported MeerKAT Large Survey Projects
MeerKAT Science news
- Are galaxies spinning in alignment with the cosmic web?
A new paper by the MIGHTEE-HI team reveals the connection between the direction of spin of galaxies and underlying large scale web of structure fund in the universe. Using a sample of 77 galaxies that are also known from other observations, the scientists calculated the axis around which the galaxies are spinning. If the background … - Megamaser “Nkalakatha” discovered by astronomers using MeerKAT
Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory together with colleagues from twelve other countries have discovered a powerful megamaser – a radio-wavelength laser indicative of colliding galaxies. … - MIGHTEE releases Early Science results
Since the MeerKAT radio telescope was inaugurated in 2018, is has been used extensively for observations for the MeerKAT Large Survey Projects, also called LSPs. Of the eight LSPs that were approved even before MeerKAT was ready for full operations, five projects process their data on the IDIA/ilifu research cloud. One of those projects is … - Name a Megamaser!
Working in partnership with IDIA, astronomers involved in the LADUMA (Looking At the Distant Universe with the MeerKAT Array) project have discovered a powerful, energetic “megamaser” source in a galaxy almost five billion light years away from Earth. The LADUMA team is seeking a nickname for this source in one of South Africa’s eleven official … - New analysis of more than 2000 Galaxies with MeerKAT
Using early science data for the MIGHTEE project on the MeerKAT radio telescope, a researcher at the University of the Western Cape – with collaborators from eight countries, including four other South African Institutions – has analysed over 2000 galaxies, growing our understanding of the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time. Dr Fangxia An – … - New group of galaxies discovered by the MIGHTEE team
When the science world decided to embark on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, serendipitous discovery – essentially chance findings – was boldly cited as a scientific goal. The MeerKAT telescope is already proving this bet right, as new, previously unidentified galaxies were discovered by the MIGHTEE project team in a well-studied area in the …
