Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, in collaboration with South African astronomers, have discovered a rare white ...
International Team Announces Discovery of Super-Hot Stars Using Southern African Large Telescope Using the largest single optical telescope in the Sou...
Scientists looking at data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and long-slit spectroscopy using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) have fou...
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that the orbital period of the asteroid Dimorphos around its parent asteroid Di...
The South African Astronomical Observatory invites foundation phase learners, grades R-3, and intermediate phase learners, grades 4-7, to enter our As...
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO), the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is launching a contest to nam...
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the University of Canterbury’s Mount John Observatory in New Zealand have recently discovered a syst...
Prospective MSc and PhD students can join astronomers at the South African Astronomical Observatory to explore the universe. Details of how to apply ...
A team of scientists from the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), Michigan State University (MSU), and the University of Miami (UM) have cr...
The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, is pleased that one of two new ATLAS asteroid alert system telescopes is ...
An international team of astrophysicists from South Africa, the UK, France and the US have found large variations in the brightness of light seen from...
Astronomers have used a planet-hunting satellite to see a white dwarf abruptly switching on and off for the first time. The team observed the phenomen...
Researchers using the IRSF (InfraRed Survey Facility) at SAAO in Sutherland, have discovered three supermassive black holes from three galaxies mergin...
As part of the SAAO 200 year celebrations, the SAAO and SciFest Africa launched the SAAO 200 Astrophotography competition. The astrophotography compet...
The winners of the AstroArt Competition have been announced....
The SAAO offers students the opportunity to work with leading researchers on cutting edge astronomy and instrumentation projects. These cover observa...
2020 marked the 200 years anniversary of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). As part of its celebrations, the SAAO is giving away ten R...
Combined observations by eROSITA, the main instrument aboard the Spectrum-Röntgen-Gamma (SRG) satellite, and the Southern African Large Telescope (SA...
Deadline: 26 of May 2021 Introduction Since 2014 CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, and Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Coun...
As part of its 200 year anniversary celebrations the SAAO invites all teachers to enter our Teaching Earth and Beyond competition. The aim is to showc...
Since the building and commissioning of the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), Sutherland has become an interesting destination among tourists w...
As part of its 200 year anniversary celebrations the South African Astronomical Observatory hereby invites all foundation phase learners, grades R t...
We are pleased to announce the publication of a special astronomy edition of the NRF’s Science Matters magazine. This has been produced in celebrat...
Today, 19 October 2020, saw the premiere of the highly anticipated locally produced planetarium film ‘Rising Star’ at the Iziko Planetarium and Di...
The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) will celebrate 200 years of existence as an astronomical observatory on 20 October 2020. The Royal O...
The SAAO will, in October 2020, celebrate 200 years of existence as an astronomical observatory. We’re proud to announce the SAAO 200 Virtual Sy...
On Sunday 20 September 2020 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Center announced the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~18.5) by SAA...
In February 2020 a Kavli–IAU Workshop took place at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa. Its focus was the futur...
Observations across a range of wavelengths (optical, ultraviolet and X-rays) made in 2019, including those from the Southern African Large Telescope (...
The SAAO offers students the opportunity to work with leading researchers on cutting edge astronomy and instrumentation projects. These cover observat...
An international team of researchers, led by Dr Elias Aydi, a former SAAO and University of Cape Town PhD Student, now at Michigan State University (M...
The MASTER-SAAO Robotic telescopes have contributed to the observation of an unusually energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) which has prompted astrophysici...
by Tomasz Nowakowski Using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), astronomers have conducted spectroscopic and imaging observations of th...
The 2018/19 SAAO Annual Report has been released: Download report below:...
Scientists using the MeerKAT radio telescope and the Southern African Large Telescope have combined forces for the first time to discover and identify...
The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) will host a transit of Mercury viewing event at the SAAO in Observatory on Monday, 11 November from...
Astronomers using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), have measured the rotation of some of the largest spiral galaxies, spinning at up to 57...
Researchers from the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) have utilised the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory MeerKAT Telescope to co...
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) today announced the 32nd General Assembly of the IAU in 2024 will be hosted by Cape Town, South Africa. Thi...
An international team of astrophysicists from Southampton, Oxford and South Africa have detected a very hot, dense outflowing wind close to a black ho...
The South African Astronomical Observatory’s 1.0m telescope provided crucial follow-up observations in new research published today by members of th...
South Africa is looking forward to hosting the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly in 2024 — the first on the African continent....
Professor Michael William Feast died peacefully early on Monday morning, 1 April 2019, aged 92. He is survived by his wife Connie, three children and ...
On December 21, 2018, the South African Heritage Resources Agency(SAHRA) officially declared the South African Astronomical Observatory as a National ...
Following on from the major global announcement in October 2017 on the discovery of the first electromagnetic counterpart of a gravitational wave sour...
On the 1st of January 2019, NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft performed a very exciting flyby of the most distant object ever explored, 2014 MU69, n...
Stellar occultations are a powerful technique that allows characterization of foreground objects by watching them block light from a distant star. Thi...
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest optical telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, has played an important role as part of the i...
A new binary star system has been discovered in which a small white dwarf star is cannibalising its larger Sun-like companion. Such objects are actual...
The Southern African Large Telescope(SALT) was recently involved in the identification of a hypervelocity star, flung across the galaxy by a supernova...
Pluto is an interesting object located in the outer region of our Solar System. Although only 2376 km in diameter, it hosts five moons and a thin at...
The South African Astronomical Observatory(SAAO) will play host to the next generation of asteroid-hunting telescopes as part of the NASA funded Aster...
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Sutherland has discovered a binary star system in ...
On Friday May 25 – Africa Day 2018 – a new telescope has been inaugurated at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), near Sutherland, t...
SALT and SAAO telescopes partake in an unprecedented international collaboration to investigate the origin of the first detection of gravitational wav...
On a cold March night in Seoul almost 600 years ago, Korean astronomers spotted a bright new star in the tail of the constellation Scorpius. It was se...
The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) has concluded the naming competition for its new 1-metre telescope; a recent addition to the many na...
A new system of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star 40 light years away has been discovered using data from South African Astronomical Observato...
In the past week, a milestone was reached on the WiNCam (Wide-field Nasmyth Camera) instrument. This is an imaging camera system to be mounted on the ...