Science with SALT

Astronomers from southern Africa and SALT partners in the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Poland, Germany and India use SALT to tackle fundamental questions about how the Universe works. The science programmes are many and varied. For example, SALT is being used to conduct spectroscopic follow up observations of Supernovae to measure their distance. Projects are also proposed to conduct spectroscopic follow up observations of faint X-ray sources discovered with the XMM-Newton and Chandra satellites to determine the nature of these objects. Closer to home, SALT is being used to study some of the smallest asteroids ever discovered!

SALT is currently being used to answer questions such as: How did giant planets like Jupiter form? What is their relationship to the 'failed stars' we call 'brown dwarfs'? What is the nature of the most violent events in the Universe, namely Gamma Ray Bursters? How do accreting objects 'cannibalise' material? What is the Dark Matter content of galaxies? Why are the assemblies of billions of suns we call galaxies organised in 'bubbles', 'walls' and 'superclusters'? On the largest of scales, how did the Universe begin, and what will it become?

To answer such questions, astronomers must analyse virtually nothing - the light reaching Earth from a distant galaxy can easily be a hundred million times too faint for the eye to see. Buried in such incredibly weak signals is information that can lead to a deeper understanding of the laws of nature as well as new insights into planets, stars, black holes and galaxies.