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Budget vote exhibi.on – 16 May 2017
MeerKAT Progress Update SKA South Africa
www.ska.ac.za
www.ska.ac.za
June 2016 – 16 antenna array completed
March 2017 – 32 antenna array completed
March 2018 – 64 antenna array completed
MeerKAT progress update
32 MeerKAT antennas in the Karoo. Different subsets of these were used to generate the images in this presenta.on. The square box (which is 1.2 kilometers on the side) shows a zoomed in version of the MeerKAT core.
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M83 galaxy MeerKAT in the Northern Cape provides a magnificent view of the hydrogen gas in M83, a famous galaxy discovered in Cape Town in 1752.
Blue and green colours show star light.
Red represents radio waves from hydrogen atoms detected by MeerKAT in April 2017.
Pink indicates the presence of both star light and hydrogen atoms.
Image done with MeerKAT configura.on shown below using seven 50-‐minute exposures – achieving this detail and sensi.vity much faster than any previous observa.ons.
Credit: op+cal data from Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-‐I); radio data from SKA South Africa’s MeerKAT
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MeerKAT idenHfies a new Giant Radio Galaxy
Infrared emission in blue and MeerKAT radio emission in orange.
MeerKAT images typically show radio galaxies in the distant universe.
A small number of these galaxies are gargantuan in size.
The image on the leX shows a linear feature – a radio galaxy – that is 4 million light years long.
This iden.fies it as a Giant Radio Galaxy, the first such extreme object iden.fied by MeerKAT.
Credit: infrared data from NASA’s Wide-‐field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE); radio data from SKA South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope (made using 14 dishes within the core of the array and 2 more at a distance of 4 kilometres.)
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A star-‐forming region in the Milky Way Large scale bubbles and arcs seen with MeerKAT show stellar nurseries (where stars are born) in the Milky Way.
For comparison, the previous best image of this star-‐forming region is shown at bo_om leX, obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA).
The MeerKAT image (top leX) is: • sharper and more sensi.ve • shows fainter features with addi.onal detail
Credit: SKA South Africa’s MeerKAT; CSIRO’s ATCA radio telescope.
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Increased observaHon power of MeerKAT A galaxy in the distant universe imaged with ever beOer South African radio telescopes Same black hole observed with increasingly improved arrays of antennas.
Jets of par.cles accelerated by the black hole at the centre to near the speed of light emit radio waves.
Credit: SKA South Africa.
MeerKAT-‐16 in 2016
MeerKAT-‐4 in 2016
MeerKAT-‐16 in 2017
KAT-‐7 in 2012
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First radio image of a distant spiral galaxy
First ever radio image (right panel) of a spiral galaxy previously photographed in visible light (leX panel).
Both the visible light on the leX and the radio waves on the right leX this galaxy 230 million years ago.
Credit
Credit: op+cal data from the Digi+zed Sky Survey (DSS); radio data from SKA South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.
MeerKAT
SKA South Africa, a Business Unit of the Na.onal Research Founda.on. We are building the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope (SKA), located in South Africa and eight other African countries, with part in Australia. The SKA will be the largest radio telescope ever built and will produce science that
changes our understanding of the universe
Contact information
Email: [email protected]
www.ska.ac.za