Photo by Svetogor Maliugin on Unsplash (illustrative)
On 7 January 2026, the SKA Observatory announced that its SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa's Karoo region had achieved 'first fringes', combining signals from two dishes so they worked as a single instrument. Its sister telescope, SKA-Low, on Wajarri Yamaji country in Western Australia, produced its first image in March 2025 and reached its first construction milestone that August.
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Key facts
SKA-Mid's first fringes came from two 15-meter dishes observing a radio galaxy about 2.6 billion light-years away; the finished telescope will have 197 dishes, including the existing South African MeerKAT telescope.
In Australia, about 70 SKA-Low antenna stations of 256 antennas each had been installed by January 2026.
SKA-Low's first image, made with just four stations and 1,024 antennas, covered about 25 square degrees of sky.
The SKA Observatory is an intergovernmental organization; France became its 14th member state in June 2026, doubling membership since 2021.
Why it matters
When complete, the two SKA telescopes will form the world's largest radio telescope arrays, and the observatory said in June 2026 that early science operations were expected within months. They are a shared effort of many countries, hosted in South Africa and Australia, and membership keeps growing.
Worth noting
Both telescopes are still under construction, and SKA-Low's first data release to the scientific community is planned for 2027. The Australian site's name, Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, means 'sharing sky and stars' in the Wajarri language.
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