SKA Observatory

08/06/2026

We caught up with our new Director-General Prof. Jessica Dempsey, who started in the role last week! She told us why she's so excited to be here at this point in the SKA journey ✨

05/06/2026

✨🗺️ You’re looking at the largest ever magnetic map of the Universe!

🧲 Magnetic fields influence how the Universe has evolved over billions of years. With this new map, scientists can now study how magnetic fields influence interactions between galaxies, including our own Milky Way and its neighbours, the Magellanic Clouds.

This new map was produced by an international team led by researchers at CSIRO and the SKAO, including our very own Dr Alec Thomson, Dr George Heald and Prof. Naomi McClure-Griffiths, using CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope, an SKA precursor located on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.

📡 The future is bright for this type of research – the SKA telescopes will reveal the cosmic web in even greater detail and help to uncover the origin of magnetic fields in the Universe!

Read more from lead researcher Dr Thomson on how this map was created in the article below.

The best map yet of cosmic magnetic fields has been created with Australia’s most powerful radio telescope.

04/06/2026

Great news: France joins the SKAO! 🇫🇷🥳

France has become the 14th member state of the SKA Observatory, which means we have now doubled our membership since the start of the intergovernmental organisation in 2021.

Bienvenue to our French colleagues! 👏

The SKA project has been a top national priority for the French astronomical community for over a decade, and the country's first industrial contract was awarded last year to computing experts Bull to provide hardware for our science data processor. 💻

Read more about the news: https://loom.ly/0LpDqxQ

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Espace
CNRS, CEA, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de Paris - PSL, Université de Bordeaux, Université d'Orléans, Université Paris-Saclay, Université de Strasbourg

01/06/2026

⭐ A warm welcome to Prof. Jessica Dempsey who today begins her term as SKAO director-general!

Prof. Dempsey brings significant experience in both research and senior leadership, and is a strong advocate for greater diversity, equity and opportunity at all levels of astronomy.

She specialises in astronomical telescopes and has built and operated them on every continent, in some of the world’s most extreme environments.

“As someone who loves nothing more than building and running telescopes, there is not a better time to be asked to take up this role – we are just getting to the cool stuff!” Prof. Dempsey said.

Read the news: https://loom.ly/yHitbtA

📷: Tina Korhonen

29/05/2026

🤩 Our teams had a special tribute for our outgoing Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond.

This spectrum shows the radio emission from a hydroxyl (OH) maser coming from the expanding shell around the evolved star IRC +10420, as observed by four connected dishes of the SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa.📡🌟

Observations of this maser at 1612 MHz were the subject of Prof. Diamond’s very first first-author paper back in 1983. He used the UK’s MERLIN array – since upgraded to become e-MERLIN – and we saw it as a fitting tribute to his leadership to observe that same maser using an early version of SKA-Mid.

Masers are essentially space lasers – they’re extremely bright and emit at radio frequencies, so they can pe*****te the dusty parts of the Milky Way, and tell us a lot about the regions where they originate. In the case of IRC +10420, we can learn about the processes through which mass is lost as the star nears the end of its life. Comparing this new observation to Diamond et al.’s observations in 1983, we can see a significant evolution in the star.

Prof. Diamond was presented with a framed print of his first paper next to the new spectrum (and a preliminary image of just one tiny bright maser dot!) during a farewell event at our HQ.

💬 “SKA-Mid is going to do an absolutely wonderful job of observing objects like this,” he said. “It’s fantastic to see this spectral line image. I’ll treasure this.”

This observation is an exciting step towards an official first image from these early SKA-Mid dishes – we’re looking forward to that later this year!

28/05/2026

🌟 Today we celebrate and say a heartfelt thank you to our outgoing Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond, as he concludes his tenure at the SKA Observatory.

Prof. Diamond took the helm in 2012 and over the years has guided us through many defining chapters: the telescope design phase, establishing our intergovernmental organisation, the start of construction, and now the first stages of scientific observations.

He has also established a culture that champions diversity and inclusion in every part of the Observatory, a legacy which will continue to inspire Team SKA for years to come.

Prof. Diamond recently reflected on his SKAO tenure in a piece in Contact, which you can read here: https://loom.ly/sAYaSKM

As this part of the story comes to a close, we wish him the very best for his next adventures. 💫

26/05/2026

🚨 Last chance: Apply to be our SKA-Mid Head of Science Operations
in South Africa! 🇿🇦

Applications close Sunday 31 May 2026: https://loom.ly/QdFdZyA

What this role looks like:

📡 Joining a fantastic, distributed team to deliver a world-class science programme
🙋 Leading SKA-Mid Science Operations, and growing a talented team of operations scientists, telescope operators and data analysts
🤩 Working closely with colleagues in South Africa, Australia and the UK
🌄 Living in beautiful Cape Town
💫 Having time allocated for personal scientific research

If you're an inclusive and collaborative leader with operational and scientific experience, we want to hear from you!

South African Radio Astronomy Observatory - SARAO, National Research Foundation

19/05/2026

🖥️🛰️ Astronomers and computing specialists around the world are working on ways to mitigate the effects of satellite constellation interference on astronomy. Now, new software developed in Switzerland is helping to remove this interference from radio telescope observations!

Developed by the Swiss SKA consortium SKACH, the TABASCAL algorithm is now being tested on data collected by a prototype SKA-Low station.

Read more on the SKACH website 👉 https://loom.ly/-LbKFsI

Photo credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/DECam DELVE Survey

15/05/2026

SCIENCE: The SKA pathfinders are facilities dotted around the globe delivering cutting-edge science and helping the community to prepare for the SKA telescopes!

In the latest issue of Contact we explore some of their recent discoveries:

🌟 An unusual radio glow in the distant Universe found by MeerKAT
🔍 A nearby galaxy serving as gravitational lens for a cosmic laser
🗺️ LOFAR maps the radio sky in exceptional detail
⚖️ Measuring the mass of the first stars with REACH
👩‍💻 A powerful odd radio circle discovered by citizen scientists in India
🌌 The largest low-frequency radio colour image of the Milky Way

Read it all here 👉 https://loom.ly/G25ekVw

Photo credit: Maya Horton and the LOFAR surveys collaboration.

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With thanks to our partners for their contributions:
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory - SARAO, IDIA, ASTRON - Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, The University of Manchester and ICRAR

14/05/2026

🇬🇧 Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser Prof. Dame Angela McLean to SKAO Global HQ near Manchester.

Dame Angela spoke about the SKAO’s important role in science diplomacy and capacity development during the visit, and spent time with our neighbours at Jodrell Bank to hear about the scientific research and public engagement taking place at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. 📡

“By being here, what I see is the reality of the fact that the SKAO is a massive international collaboration, and the historical influence of this site. Those two elements together, this global project and the deep history in this part of the northwest of England, is tremendously inspiring.

“These big international collaborations are very important both for what they set out to deliver, but also the way they build trusted communities right across the world. I feel very proud of the fact that we in the UK play such a big part in the SKAO."