Meerkat

MeerKAT is a radio telescope array located in the Karoo desert near Carnarvon, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is one of the first precursors to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO). The array consists of 64 dish antennas, each 13.5 meters in diameter, configured to provide high sensitivity. The longest baseline is about 8 kilometers, enabling detailed imaging of radio sources.

Construction began in the 2010s, with first light in 2018 and scientific operations commencing in 2019. MeerKAT's science goals include surveys of neutral hydrogen over cosmic time, high-resolution imaging of galaxies and active galactic nuclei, studies of pulsars in the Milky Way, and searches for transient phenomena such as fast radio bursts. The array's broad bandwidth and sensitivity make it well suited for deep field surveys and large-scale HI mapping.

Operating under SARAO, MeerKAT provides a testbed for technologies and data-processing approaches that will be used by SKA Phase 1. Data are processed with a central correlator and software pipelines that calibrate, image and catalogue the observations. Since becoming operational, MeerKAT has contributed to numerous studies of extragalactic radio sources, the structure of our galaxy, and the transient radio sky, and it has helped advance international collaborations around the SKA project.