On Saturday 16 July 2016 the MeerKat radio telescope, currently under construction in South Africa, formally commissioned its first 16 dishes. The same day, astronomers released the first image taken by these 16 dishes: the image revealed 1300 galaxies in a small region of space where only 70 galaxies had previously been detected.

These 16 MeerKat dishes represent only one quarter of the final contingent: the complete telescope will contain 64 dishes. And the 64-dish MeerKat will be only one element of the multi-component Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

This first image from a quarter-completed Meerkat gives a hint at what a tremendously powerful instrument the SKA is going to be!

A “first light” image from the MeerKat radio telescope. The central image is a montage. The two right-hand panels show galaxies containing central supermassive black holes.(Credit: MeerKat/SKA South Africa)