Africa news roundup: 22-28 November

MeerKAT and SALT make first joint discovery

A pair of South Africa telescopes have made a significant discovery on their first combined sweep of the sky. The MeerKAT radio telescope and the Southern African Large Telescope jointly discovered and identified a previously invisible radio emission flare from a binary star called a transient that lasts only a short time. The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory says the discovery provides researchers with clues to the life cycle of stars. “This is a perfect example of where coordinated observations across different wavelengths were combined to give a holistic view of a newly discovered object,” said David Buckley, director of the transient programme at SALT.