Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT)

MeerKAT imaging spectroscopy reveals multiple electron acceleration sites in a solar flare by Luo et al.

June 9, 2026

Solar flares are the most explosive energy-release events in the solar corona, leading to intense particle acceleration, plasma heating, and bulk plasma motions on short timescales. Core questions during solar flares remain unresolved, including how and where particle acceleration occurs, and how energized electrons propagate through coronal magnetic structures. Radio observations, due to their unique sensitivity to nonthermal and thermal electrons, serve as powerful diagnostics of electron dynamics and high-temperature […]

solar images

Technical Readiness of MeerKAT for Solar Observations and Initial Science Results by D. Kansabanik et al.

March 31, 2026

Solar radio emissions offer unique diagnostic insights into the solar corona. However, their dynamic and multiscale nature, along with variations spanning several orders of magnitude in intensity, pose significant observational challenges. To date, at gigahertz frequencies, MeerKAT (Jonas & MeerKAT Team 2016) stands out globally for its intrinsic ability to produce high-fidelity, spectroscopic snapshot images of the Sun. This is enabled primarily by its dense core, high sensitivity, and broad […]

Spectroscopic Imaging of the Sun with MeerKAT: Opening a New Frontier in Solar Physics by Kansabanik et al.

April 10, 2024

Since the discovery of solar radio emission in the late 1940s, the Sun has been studied in great detail across a wide range of frequencies from a few tens of kHz to several hundreds of GHz. Solar radio emissions provide several unique diagnostics of the solar corona, which are otherwise simply inaccessible. Despite this long history of observations and studies, the Sun still harbors several mysteries. Improved observations from the […]