Astronomers have discovered a new type of radio source that remains largely unexplained, inspiring exciting new research questions. Known as long-period radio transients (LPTs), these signals emit powerful, regular radio pulses that last tens of seconds to half an hour and repeat on timescales of minutes to hours. As researchers investigate their origins and properties, they rely on the ability to transfer vast amounts of observational data for analysis.

A new collaboration between the Australian SKA Regional Centre (AusSRC) and the Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) is enabling just that. Powered by AARNet’s high-speed research and education network and Globus, a research data management service designed for high-performance and large-scale data transfers, the teams can now move critical datasets quickly and reliably.

High-resolution observations with MeerKAT

Natasha Hurley-Walker is an Associate Professor at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA) is part of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). She leads a team using MeerKAT, a highly sensitive radio telescope located in South Africa’s Meerkat National Park, to observe known LPTs during their pulse cycles. MeerKAT is a 64-dish radio telescope array and one of the most advanced instruments of its kind, designed to detect faint radio signals and study a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. It also serves as a key pathfinder for the upcoming SKA Project. Natasha explains that their current research builds on initial detections of ten long-period transients using widefield survey instruments like the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and the ASKAP radio telescope, both located in Australia and designed to scan large portions of the sky quickly.

“These telescopes helped us discover the LPTs, but to study their magnetic fields, emission mechanisms, environments, and other characteristics, we need higher resolution and sensitivity, which is where MeerKAT comes in,” says Natasha.

Because the sources repeat on predictable cycles, the team can schedule short, targeted observations with MeerKAT to capture high-resolution data at exactly the right moments to maximise efficiency while revealing new physical detail.

Each observation from the MeerKAT telescope generates ten gigabytes up to four terabytes of data, which is initially archived at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) before being pushed to IDIA in Cape Town for staging and coordination and later moved to the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth, Western Australia, for analysis.

Global-scale data movement made easy

Transferring large radio astronomy datasets from South Africa to Australia presents a significant logistical challenge. “The data doesn’t take a direct path — it travels across Africa, through Europe and the continental United States, over the Pacific Ocean, and finally into Australia,” comments Natasha. “This can increase the chance of interruptions and failed transfers.”

Previously, the team relied on Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), Wget, or rsync — utilities designed for simpler or smaller-scale transfers — which often failed over such complex international network paths due to packet loss. Each failure meant restarting the entire transfer from scratch, making the process both time-consuming and frustrating.

Now, using Globus over AARNet’s research network infrastructure, they can transfer datasets from South Africa to Australia in minutes, with fast, reliable performance across international networks and multiple institutions. This timely access is critical, enabling the researchers to respond quickly to new discoveries, refine their observing strategies, and begin analysis while the signals are still scientifically relevant.

Turning observations into insights

Once data is staged in Cape Town, it is transferred using Globus to the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Perth, where they run their compute-intensive imaging and analysis pipelines.

“The speed and reliability of Globus means we’re no longer held back by transfer delays. We can go straight from observation to analysis,” says Natasha.

Globus also integrates easily into the team’s workflow. Transfers can be initiated from anywhere in the world through a simple web interface, and the use of federated identity services allows researchers to log in seamlessly with their existing institutional credentials at both ends.

Supporting international collaboration

With the SKA Project on the horizon, this collaboration also paves the way for automating future workflows — from telescope to supercomputer to scientific insight — and for managing the even larger data volumes that next-generation telescopes will produce.

As astronomy enters a new era of data-intensive discovery, the team studying long-period radio transients is showing how international collaboration can thrive when data moves as fast as the science.

Photo: The South African MeerKAT radio telescope is a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. Credit: South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).