The Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy is a partnership of three South African universities, the University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape and University of Pretoria.

The overarching goal of IDIA is to build within the South African university research community the capacity and expertise in data intensive research to enable global leadership on MeerKAT large survey science projects and large projects on other SKA pathfinder telescopes.

Image: SARAO

CALLING ALL ilifu USERS! ilifu Astronomy User Survey 2024

We are pleased to invite you to complete our ilifu Astronomy User Survey 2024! We strive to provide the best service to our users, especially in light of the many amazing MeerKAT science projects that have a home at IDIA. It is crucial that we have feedback from our user community, and this survey will help us to ensure that … Read More

PRESS RELEASE: Public release of the iDaVIE Virtual Reality software by the IDIA Vislab

Cape Town, South Africa – October 1, 2024  The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) and the Department of Astronomy at the University of Cape Town (UCT) are proud to announce the first public release of the innovative iDaVIE software by the IDIA Visualisation Lab (IDIA Vislab). This milestone marks a significant advancement in astronomy data visualisation and analysis, … Read More

NSTF-South32 Awards – winners!!!

IDIA Wins at the 2023/2024 NSTF-South32 Awards! We are happy to announce that IDIA has won the NSTF-South32 Special Annual Theme Award for 4th Industrial Revolution in South Africa! The hybrid gala events of the 26th NSTF-South32 Awards took place simultaneously in Johannesburg, Cape Town and online during the evening of Thursday, 11 July 2024. This prestigeous awards ceremony, which is the … Read More

NEW IDIA-EMPOWERED PHD GRADUATE! Dr Charissa Button becomes UP’s first PhD graduate in Astrophysics

Dr Charissa Button has made history by becoming the University of Pretoria’s (UP, one of IDIA’s partner Universities) first PhD graduate in Astrophysics (capped during the University’s autumn graduation ceremonies). During Dr Button’s PhD research, she made use of IDIA infrastructure and MeerKAT data to study how gravitational lensing can be used as an approach to probe the more distant … Read More

JOB ADVERT: DIRECTOR (PROFESSOR) – IDIA POSITION

The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA), established in 2015, is a partnership of three South African universities: the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria and the University of the Western Cape with the aims to build capacity and expertise in data intensive astronomy in the partner institutions and to provide systems and solutions for converting data … Read More

MEDIA RELEASE: Meet the 49ers – 49 new galaxies found by MeerKAT and IDIA in a few hours

The 49ers – the 49 new gas-rich galaxies detected by the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. Each detection is shown as coloured contours, with redder colours indicating more distant gas from us, and bluer colours as closer gas. The background image comes from the optical PanSTARRS survey. Glowacki et al. 2024 The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa has … Read More

IDIA Postdoctoral Fellowship Position

UPDATE: This position is now filled. The MeerKAT telescope is the precursor of the Square Kilometre Array mid-frequency dish array to be deployed later this decade on the African continent. MIGHTEE is one of the MeerKAT large survey projects, designed to pathfind SKA key science in cosmology and galaxy evolution. Through deep full-Stokes radio continuum imaging over several fields totaling … Read More

The World’s Largest International Astronomy Meeting will be held in Africa and Open to the Public for the first time.

Registrations Now Open for the Historic International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly 2024 Promoting Open, Impactful, and Sustainable Science The National Organising Committee of the 32nd International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly (GA) is excited to announce that registrations are now officially open for the IAU GA 2024. This pivotal event marks a groundbreaking moment as the triennial IAU GA will, … Read More

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR: IDIA Development & Outreach

UPDATE: This position is now filled. The ADDO position will be appointed as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science for a 3-year limited term and will be expected to maintain a research program in the broad area of astro-informatics or a related area of data intensive research. The ADDO is an ex-officio member of the IDIA management and … Read More

Astronomers reveal cosmic ribbon around rare galaxy

The galaxy NGC 4632 surrounded by a ring of cold hydrogen gas.  Using the ASKAP telescope, scientists discovered that this galaxy contains a (potential) polar ring of gas that orbits the galaxy at ~90 degrees relative to its body.  The separation of the gas from the main body was made possible through the use of VR analysis enabled by the … Read More