March 17, 2025 – The first image from the SKA-Low radio telescope was released today. SKA-Low is part of the SKA Observatory (SKAO) and is located in Australia. This marks a significant milestone in SKAO's mission to provide an unprecedented view of our universe.

The first image using four stations of SKA-Low. The full moon in the upper right corner is shown for image size reference. Credit: SKAO

The image covers an area of ​​the sky approximately 25 square degrees in size, equivalent to about 100 full moons. It displays 85 of the brightest known galaxies in that region, all of which contain supermassive black holes. The image was obtained with an early version of the SKA-Low telescope, one of two telescopes being built by SKAO. This early version of SKA-Low consists of just 1,000 of the planned 131,000 antennas. Once completed, the telescope will be able to reveal many more objects; scientists estimate it will be able to detect more than 600,000 galaxies in the same region of the sky.

SKAO is currently building two radio telescopes: SKA-Low in Western Australia and SKA-Mid in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. The telescopes are arrays of 15-meter parabolic antennas (SKA-Mid) and dipole antennas (SKA-Low), spread over large distances. Two Spanish companies, Safran Electronics & Defense Spain and EMITE, are playing a key role in the construction of SKA-Low, providing high-precision synchronization systems between the antennas and equipment for testing and validating electronic components. "Synchronizing the signals from the different antennas is crucial for combining them correctly. Furthermore, to avoid interference, it is necessary to test that all electronic components do not generate noise in radio waves that could affect the signal from the astronomical objects being observed," explains Dr. Julián Garrido, deputy technology coordinator at SKA-Spain, adding: "For this same reason, the telescopes are being built in remote, sparsely populated locations, minimising human-caused interference."

SKA-Low is being built at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is located on the lands of the Wajarri Yamaji Aboriginal people, the traditional owners and native land title holders. The location's Aboriginal name, Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, means "sharing the sky and stars", and reflects the commitment and collaboration between SKAO and the Indigenous peoples and cultures who inhabit the lands where its telescopes are being built.

Drone image of SKA-Low's S8 cluster with two stations completed from June 2024. Credit: SKAO

The acquisition of this image has verified the telescope's operation and capabilities. Professor Philip Diamond, Director General of the SKAO, said the image marks the observatory's debut as a scientific facility. "With this image we see the promise of the SKA Observatory as it opens its eyes to the Universe," said Professor Diamond. "This first image is a critical step for the Observatory, and for the astronomy community; we are demonstrating that the system as a whole is working. As the telescopes grow, and more stations and dishes come online, we’ll see the images improve in leaps and bounds and start to realise the full power of the SKAO."

The SKAO telescopes are being built in phases, with components sourced from SKAO member countries around the world. Dr. Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, coordinator of Spain's participation in the SKAO, highlighted the international nature of the observatory: "This milestone has been possible thanks to an international collaboration between scientists and engineers from academia and industry. Sixteen countries from five continents are participating in the SKA project, and the impact it is already having and will have will be global thanks to SKAO's commitment to the scientific community and international society as a whole."

The Spanish participation in the SKAO is funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, with the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics (IAA-CSIC) responsible for the national scientific and technical coordination of the project.

This animation shows the various stages of deployment of the SKA-Low telescope over the coming years, and the images it is expected to produce of the same area of ​​the sky. Credit: SKAO

Links of interest

Associated multimedia materials https://skao.canto.global/b/LTFMH

SKAO press release: https://www.skao.int/en/news/621/ska-low-first-glimpse-universe

22/01/2025 - A radio transient with the longest period yet seen, 2.9 hrs, was discovered by a team including Nanda Rea of ICE-CSIC and published in December 2024.

The team found the transient in low-frequency archival data from the SKAO precursor Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Such long-period radio transients are a fairly new area of research and it is challenging to determine how the signals are generated. In this case, the team managed to find the probable source for the energy bursts, using another SKA precursor, MeerKAT, and optical SOAR observatory, and determine that the optical counterpart is a cool M3 dwarf star. This means that the signal is not due to a magnetar, but more likely is generated in a dwarf binary system scenario.

Read more:
ICE-CSIC press release
ICRAR press release
Paper: Hurley-Walker et al., 2025

Using 2 SKAO precursors, the team could trace the 2.9 hr long-period transient radio source to a specific object and measure its counterpart in optical to find an M3 dwarf star. Image credit: Hurley-Walker at al, 2024..

The team found the radio signal in archival data from the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope, an SKAO precursor. Image credit: ICRAR/Curtin.

17/05/2023 – These bursts, which show a similar luminosity in almost all cases, are used to measure distances in the universe or to study dark energy. The study, in which the Institute de Astrophysics de Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) participates, shows that the explosion occurred in a double star system in which a white dwarf stole material from its solar-type companion. El trabajo, en el que participa el Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), muestra que la explosión se produjo en un sistema doble de estrellas en el que una enana blanca robaba material de su compañera, de tipo solar.

Type Ia supernovae are produced when a white dwarf, the "corpse" of a Sun-like star, absorbs material from a companion star and reaches a critical mass, equivalent to 1.4 solar masses, triggering an explosion whose luminosity will, given its origin, be similar in almost all cases. This uniformity made Type Ia supernovae the ideal objects for measuring distances in the Universe, but the origin and nature of the progenitor system was unknown. Now, the first radio observation of a type Ia supernova confirms that it comes from a double star system consisting of a white dwarf and a solar-type star. The results are published in the journal Nature.

"When we saw signs of a strong interaction with the companion star material in supernova SN2020eyj, we tried to observe the explosion in radio, something that had been attempted without success for decades", explains Erik Kool, a researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of the paper.

Type Ia supernovae always contain a white dwarf, which receives material from its companion. However, it was not known whether this companion was a white dwarf or a Sun-like star, something that radio imaging could reveal.

“This first radio detection of a type Ia supernova is a milestone that has allowed us to demonstrate that the exploded white dwarf was accompanied by a normal, non-degenerate star before the explosion", says Javier Moldón, a researcher at the IAA-CSIC who participated in the discovery. In addition, with these observations we can estimate the mass and geometry of the material surrounding the supernova, which allows us to better understand what the system was like before the explosion.

Artist's conception of the system that produced the supernova, in which a white dwarf star absorbs material from its companion star. Source: Adam Makarenko/W. M. Keck Observatory.

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13/12/2022 – The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) participates in the WEAVE scientific team, whose first observations already show the high quality of the data that the spectrograph will provide

WEAVE, a powerful state-of-the-art multifibre spectrograph installed on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands), has obtained its first light. The instrument, whose scientific team includes the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), has obtained spectra of two of the galaxies in Stephan's Quintet, showing that WEAVE is already generating high-quality data.

The first observations were carried out with the so-called large integral field unit (LIFU) fibre bundle, one of WEAVE's three fibre systems in which 547 closely packed optical fibres transmit light in a hexagonal area of the sky to the spectrograph, where it is analysed and recorded.

The LIFU was aimed at NGC 7318a and NGC 7318b, two galaxies at the heart of Stephan's Quintet, a group of interacting galaxies. The group, 280 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus, is undergoing a major galaxy collision and provides a natural laboratory for the consequences of galaxy collisions on galaxy evolution. The spectra obtained by WEAVE reveal the motions of stars and gas, the chemical composition of the stars, the temperatures and densities of the gas clouds, among others, and provide insight into how galaxy collisions transform the galaxies in the group.

"Our goal was to host a unique instrument that would enable cutting-edge astronomical research. We are now pleased to demonstrate that the LIFU part of WEAVE not only works, but also produces high-quality data", says Marc Balcells, director of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) to which the telescope hosting WEAVE belongs. For his part, WEAVE principal investigator Gavin Dalton highlights "the wealth of complexity revealed by a single detailed observation of this pair of nearby galaxies, which provides an excellent illustration of the power and flexibility of WEAVE".

Left: The William Herschel Telescope with WEAVE. The WEAVE positioner is housed in the 1.8-metre black box above the top-end ring. Optical fibres run along the telescope structure to the light-gray enclosure on the left which houses the WEAVE spectrograph. Credit: Sebastian Kramer. Right: The JWST image with the WEAVE LIFU pointing at Stephan's Quintet for the first-light observation. The LIFU gathers light from 547 points on the sky for analysis by the WEAVE spectrograph (each circle indicates an optical fibre 2.6 arcseconds in diameter). The observation provides physical information from each separate region of each galaxy as well as the space in between. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI (background image); Aladin (overlay with fibres).

WEAVE, A STATE-OF-THE-ART SPECTROGRAPH

WEAVE is a multi-mode, multi-fibre spectrograph built by a consortium of European astronomical institutions, led by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council, to become the next generation spectroscopic facility for the WHT.

WEAVE uses optical fibres to collect light from celestial sources and transmits it to a two-armed spectrograph. The spectrograph separates the light into its different wavelengths, or colours, and records them on large-format CCD light detectors. WEAVE's versatility is one of its greatest strengths. While the LIFU mode houses 547 tightly packed fibres to image large areas of the sky, in MOS mode up to 960 individual fibres can be placed separately using two robots to capture the light from many hundreds of stars, galaxies or quasars. In mIFU mode, the fibres are organised into 20 units, each consisting of 37 fibres, which are used to study small and large targets, such as nebulae and distant galaxies.

WEAVE also provides velocities along the line of sight through the Doppler effect. Depending on the science target, there is a choice between two spectral resolution powers: at low resolution, the spectra distinguish velocity differences of about 5 kilometres per second, and at high resolution of 1.2 kilometres per second. Even at its lowest power of resolution, WEAVE records the line-of-sight velocities of stars with accuracies similar to those of the transverse velocities measured by ESA's Gaia satellite.

The advantage of the LIFU comes from the sheer amount of information contained in each observation. WEAVE produces spectra for each of 31,500 points or regions in and around the galaxies in two hours. The intensity of light from the fibres builds the image of the galaxies shown in the centre. The individual spectra (intensity at each wavelength; seven examples shown) provide a wealth of information about the physical conditions at each location. At the two galaxy nuclei (top-right) the spectra indicate moderately-old stars (one billion years) and no on-going star formation. The narrow, peaked spectra in the lower-right are typical of gas (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur) heated to over 10,000 degrees by very young stars, whereas the broad, asymmetric peaks in the spectra shown on the left indicate turbulent shocks between gas clouds. WEAVE is particularly accurate at measuring wavelengths, or velocities. In the bottom-left panel (in red) obtained in the high spectral resolving power mode, velocity distributions as narrow as 12.8 km/s can be measured.

27th August 2021 – The IAA-CSIC heads one of the eleven articles that make up a special issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on the results of LOFAR

After almost a decade of work, an international scientific team has published the most detailed images ever obtained of galaxies, which provide information about their internal workings in unprecedented detail. The images were created from data collected by LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), a network of more than 70,000 small antennas distributed throughout Europe. The images and the associated scientific results have been published in a special issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, one of them headed by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).

A compilation of the science results. Credit from left to right starting at the top: N. Ramírez-Olivencia et al. [radio]; NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), edited by R. Cumming [optical], C. Groeneveld, R. Timmerman; LOFAR & Hubble Space Telescope,. Kukreti; LOFAR & Sloan Digital Sky Survey, A. Kappes, F. Sweijen; LOFAR & DESI Legacy Imaging Survey, S. Badole; NASA, ESA & L. Calcada, Graphics: W.L. Williams.

The universe is flooded with electromagnetic radiation, of which visible light, the one captured by our eyes, is only a small portion. From short wavelengths, like gamma rays and X-rays, to long wavelengths, like radio, each part of the spectrum of light reveals something unique about the universe.

The LOFAR network captures images at radio frequencies that, unlike shorter wavelength sources such as visible light, are not blocked by clouds of dust and gas that can obscure astronomical objects. Thus, regions of the sky that appear dark to our eyes glow brightly in radio waves, and radio telescopes allow us to observe areas obscured by dust, such as regions where stars form or the heart of galaxies.

The new images obtained with the LOFAR network go beyond the limits of what we know about galaxies and supermassive black holes. The images reveal the inner workings of both nearby and distant galaxies with a resolution twenty times sharper than typical LOFAR images, made possible by the unique way the team made use of the network.

This image shows real radio galaxies from Morabito et al. (2021). The gif fades from the standard resolution to the high resolution, showing the detail we can see by using the new techniques. Credit: L.K. Morabito; LOFAR Surveys KSP

The more than 70,000 LOFAR antennas are spread across Europe, with the majority in the Netherlands. In standard operation, only signals from antennas located in the Netherlands are combined and a virtual telescope is created with a collecting surface of about 120 kilometers in diameter. By using signals from all European antennas, the team has increased the diameter of the "lens" to nearly two thousand kilometers, providing a twenty-fold increase in resolution.

Furthermore, unlike conventional array antennas that combine multiple signals in real time to produce images, LOFAR uses a new concept in which the signals collected by each antenna are digitized, transported to the central processor, and then combined to create an image. Each LOFAR image is the result of combining the signals of more than 70,000 antennas, which makes its extraordinary resolution possible.

A CHALLENGE OF A DECADE

Even before LOFAR began operating in 2012, the European scientific team began to work on the colossal challenge of combining the signals of more than 70,000 antennas located at a distance of up to two thousand kilometers. "Our goal is that our work allows the international scientific community to use the entire European network of LOFAR telescopes for their own science, and to create high-resolution images with relative ease without having to spend years acquiring the knowledge," says Leah Morabito, researcher at Durham University who has coordinated the work.

The LOFAR results provide new perspectives on known galaxies, show their structure in detail and allow the detection of jets and ejections of material emerging from supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei. Specifically, the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has contributed with a study of the galaxy Arp-299, which stands out for its high rate of supernova production, or explosions produced by the death of stars with more than eight times the mass of the Sun.

"At the IAA we have been investigating this galaxy for years, which due to the interaction with the companion galaxy is generating outbreaks of star formation -says Naím Ramírez-Olivencia, IAA researcher who heads the study-. It is, therefore, a very interesting object because it allows us to study in almost real time how stars are born, die and interact with the surrounding environment ".

"Our work has been chosen for this compendium of articles related to LOFAR because it is one of the first to show the capabilities of this wonderful instrument for low radio frequencies. Thanks to LOFAR we have managed to detect, for example, a gas outflow emanating from one of the nuclei of the Arp299 galaxy system, and with a scale comparable to the galaxy from which it emanates. Such a result has only been possible thanks to the great sensitivity and resolution of LOFAR, which in its current configuration constitutes a milestone in the astronomy and opens up a world of new discoveries", concludes the researcher.

15th July 2021 – Its abundance in neutral hydrogen suggests that it is a group of galaxies in the process of formation

Most galaxies with intense star formation are contained within a cloud of cold neutral hydrogen, which acts as the fuel from which new stars will form. It is a diffuse, extremely faint gas that can only be detected at radio wavelengths and extends beyond the visible region of the galaxy. The observation of this gas allows us to understand the evolutionary processes that take place in galaxies, and a scientific team with the participation of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has found, with the MeerKAT radiotelescope, an ideal object of study: the group of galaxies richest in neutral hydrogen known.

"The distribution of neutral hydrogen in these galaxies has revealed interesting perturbed morphologies that suggest that the galaxies in the group influence each other. For example, we found a pair of interacting galaxies that will potentially merge to form a new galaxy with a completely transformed appearance", says Shilpa Ranchod, a researcher at the University of Pretoria who leads the study.

Image of the galaxy cluster with three-color optical images of each member galaxy using data from the Hyper-Suprime camera on the Subaru telescope. The red outline indicates the extent of neutral hydrogen around each galaxy. Credit: Shilpa Ranchod / Project MIGHTEE / HSC.

30th November 2020 – MHONGOOSE, a legacy project of the MeerKAT radiointerferometer, South African precursor to the Square Kilometer Array, produces its first results. They have been obtained in its preparatory phase, thus anticipating the window that will open to the understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

MHONGOOSE (MeerKAT Observations of Nearby Galactic Objects - Observing Southern Emitters) is a legacy project to study the distribution of atomic hydrogen (HI) in a selection of nearby galaxies using the MeerKAT radiotelescope (South Africa). As part of its testing phase, it has already provided its first scientific results. This first work, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, provides new findings on the distribution of gas around the galaxy ESO 302-G014 and shows the potential of the project.

Aerial view of the MeerKAT interferometer under construction. Credit: SARAO.

MHONGOOSE will study how galaxies capture gas from their surroundings and the relationship between gas and star formation. To do so, the distribution of atomic hydrogen (HI) will be studied in a sample of 30 nearby galaxies, located less than 65 million light years from our Milky Way. The galaxies have been selected to cover all inclinations, from edge-on galaxies to front-on galaxies, and cover a very wide range in mass and luminosity.

This variety in the sample allows addressing various questions about the transformation and evolution processes of galaxies in the nearby universe. The project has obtained 1650 hours of observation in the MeerKAT radiointerferometer, a precursor of SKA (Square Kilometer Array) consisting of 64 antennas located in the Karoo desert, in South Africa. MeerKAT is, until SKA is built, the most efficient telescope to obtain the type of data that is needed in MHONGOOSE.

Gas Clouds Surrounding a Dwarf Galaxy in the Southern Hemisphere

The first results that MHONGOOSE provides correspond to the galaxy called ESO 302-G014, a nearby gas-rich dwarf galaxy. The international scientific team responsible for the work, which has the participation of the IAA-CSIC, has used observations made with MeerKAT, together with complementary data in other wavelengths, to study its evolutionary history. They have found that the galaxy has a thin, asymmetrical outer disk, as well as a tidal tail of atomic hydrogen and an isolated cloud about 6,500 light-years from this galaxy.

These structures, which had not been previously detected, seem to indicate that the galaxy underwent an interaction with another low mass galaxy. Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, IAA-CSIC scientific researcher and the only Spanish member of the MHONGOOSE team, highlights that “the detected signs of a possible interaction with some low-mass galaxy companion are also supported by the presence of significant amounts of molecular gas detected by the ALMA interferometer and the existence of prominent star clusters, suggesting a recently induced star formation”.

Emission of atomic hydrogen associated with the galaxy ESO 302-G014, represented in three dimensions, where the structure that could correspond to a possible interaction with a low-mass companion is shown. Credit: Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro (IAA-CSIC).

"The deep images from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey show a faint and diffuse object near the end of the filament, whose radius, brightness and color are compatible with that of a dwarf galaxy at a distance similar to that of ESO 302-G014", points out Javier Román, a researcher at the IAA-CSIC expert in deep optical images who participates in the work.
These results are, according to Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro, “just a small preview of things to come”, as they have been obtained with preliminary observations, and she is confident that “in-depth observations of the objects in the MHONGOOSE sample will offer a glimpse of the fate of atomic gas when transferring from the intergalactic medium to galaxies”. In the medium-term future, these types of observations will be able to be extended to more distant galaxies thanks to SKA, which will be the largest radiotelescope in the world, and in which MeerKAT will be integrated to form a single interferometer.