Science Art: MeerKAT telescopes, 2018

Scientific illustrations of rows of radio telescopes
Scientific illustrations of rows of radio telescopes

They do look a little like meerkats, these big African satellite dishes. This is a photo from the Square Kilometre Array Organisation (SKAO) / South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).

The KAT in the name comes from the Karoo Array Telescope – the Karoo being a desert in South Africa (and I believe the driest desert in the world). Meerkats live thereabouts, more or less, and these radio dishes happen to be inside Meerkat National Park. But the park appears to be named for the Square Kilometre Array’s MeerKAT, PAPER and HERA telescopes.

The SKA (Square Kilometre Array) is a joint Australian and South African project, because there’s less radio interference south of the equator and they good views of the Milky Way. Per Wikipedia: “It will operate over a wide range of frequencies and its size will make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument. If built as planned, it should be able to survey the sky more than ten thousand times faster than before.”

The MeerKAT (with PAPER and HERA) is considered a precursor to the full-on SKA, but it looks plenty developed all on its own.