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In less than three hours, South Africa\u2019s MeerKAT radio telescope<\/a> detected 49 previously unknown, gas-rich galaxies by tracing the hydrogen gas that fuels star formation and links neighboring systems.<\/p>\n That observation was originally planned to examine a single radio galaxy<\/a>, but the same data quietly exposed dozens of additional systems.<\/p>\n The work was led by Dr. Marcin Glowacki at Curtin University<\/a> in Western Australia. His research tracks how galaxies gain and lose gas over time, so unexpected signals became the focus.<\/p>\n Gas that makes stars<\/p>\n Star formation<\/a> in galaxies rises with neutral hydrogen, hydrogen atoms with electrons still attached, as gas clouds cool and collapse into stars.<\/p>\n Because hydrogen sits between stars, mapping it shows where a galaxy can keep making stars<\/a> over time.<\/p>\n Gas maps alone cannot show what sparked the collapse, so researchers still need starlight and dust measurements.<\/p>\n Radio telescopes trace hydrogen through a faint 8.3-inch radio signal from hydrogen atoms in cold space. The frequency changes with motion, so the spectrum shows each galaxy\u2019s speed along our line of sight.<\/p>\n That signature travels through dust, which lets surveys spot gas-rich galaxies that optical images can miss.<\/p>\n Hunting galaxies with MeerKAT<\/p>\n MeerKAT is a radio telescope that sits 56 miles outside Carnarvon in South Africa, where dry air helps keep signals clean.<\/p>\n Its 64 receptors<\/a> form an interferometer, a network of antennas that combines signals into images, across a 5-mile-span.<\/p>\n That layout gives sharp images and picks up weak emission, but the telescope still needs careful calibration to avoid false features.<\/p>\n Observations from many antennas arrive as streams of numbers, not pictures, so fast computing turns them into usable maps.<\/p>\n The Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA<\/a>) built a data cube, a 3D map stacked by radio frequency.<\/p>\n Even with good code, weak signals can hide in noise, so IDIA teams still check results by eye.<\/p>\n Groups hidden in plain view<\/p>\n The team nicknamed the sample the 49ers after 1849 California gold rush miners, and many sit close together in the sky. A galaxy<\/a> group can hold shared gas that drifts between members.<\/p>\n Crowded environments complicate measurements, because overlapping signals can blend and confuse which galaxy owns which gas.<\/p>\n One part of the 49ers shows three neighboring galaxies linked by hydrogen, with the gas stretching beyond their visible disks.<\/p>\n A tidal interaction, gravity from close passes that pulls material outward, can move gas into streams that another galaxy collects.<\/p>\n The map hints at one galaxy gaining fuel while companions lose it, but motion details require follow-up spectra.<\/p>\n Checking the starlight too<\/p>\n Optical and infrared surveys add missing context, because hydrogen alone cannot show how many stars each system already made.<\/p>\n Researchers estimated star<\/a> formation rate, how much stellar mass forms each year, by combining ultraviolet and infrared light from each galaxy.<\/p>\n Those measurements help explain which 49ers still build stars and which ones mainly store gas without much activity.<\/p>\n Why short observations worked<\/p>\n A short observation can still reveal many galaxies when the telescope watches a wide patch with low receiver noise.<\/p>\n MeerKAT has a large field of view, the patch of sky a telescope images at once, so one pointing covers many targets.<\/p>\n Quick looks miss the faintest gas, so deeper follow-up is needed to measure total reservoirs and subtle bridges.<\/p>\n Software searches can scan cubes for galaxy-shaped signals, so researchers do not rely only on manual inspection.<\/p>\n A source finder, software that flags patterns matching real galaxies, can test several detection methods on the same data.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not expect to find almost fifty new galaxies in such a short time,\u201d said Dr. Glowacki.<\/p>\n Gas does not stay put, and when galaxies lose it to their surroundings, star making can slow down or stop.<\/p>\n Astronomers call this quenching, a slowdown in star<\/a> making when gas runs low, and group environments often speed it up.<\/p>\n By measuring gas in many nearby systems at once, the 49ers show early warning signs, but they cannot show outcomes.<\/p>\n Open data helps science<\/p>\n Public archives hold many short projects that can yield extra science when someone looks again with new tools.<\/p>\n This pointing came from Open Time, telescope hours awarded through competitive review, and IDIA supports reuse across South African universities.<\/p>\n Open access invites more people to explore, but it also demands stable calibration records and clear links between files and results.<\/p>\n Lessons from the MeerKAT 49ers galaxies<\/p>\n Methods tested on the 49ers can scale up for larger surveys that need consistent results from machine searching.<\/p>\n Square Kilometre Array (SKA<\/a>), a planned radio observatory made from linked antennas, will integrate MeerKAT into its Phase 1 system.<\/p>\n SKA surveys will push deeper, so teams need reliable pipelines and clear quality checks to avoid missing real galaxies.<\/p>\n Together, the 49ers demonstrate how quickly MeerKAT and modern data pipelines can map hydrogen in preparation for future SKA surveys.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope to continue our studies and share even more discoveries of new gas-rich galaxies with the wider community soon,\u201d said Glowacki.<\/p>\n Such follow-up work could expand the census of gas-rich systems and clarify how often galaxies exchange fuel in group environments.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brief look at a quiet stretch of sky by the MeerKAT radio telescope revealed dozens of unseen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-237874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Centaurus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/galaxy_centaurus-A_MeerKAT-radio-telescope-observation_1s.webp.webp\")
<\/a>Centaurus A is a famous example of a relatively nearby radio galaxy. Inside the galaxy is a supermassive black hole which is generating the large jets which can be seen emerging perpendicular to the disc of the galaxy. Credit: ESO\/WFI (Optical); MPIfR\/ESO\/APEX\/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA\/CXC\/CfA\/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray). Click image to enlarge.<\/p>\n