Meet the 49ers: A serendipitous discovery of HI-rich galaxy groups with MeerKAT and the importance of searching Open Time datasets

Galaxy groups occupy up to 50\% of the local Universe and are important parts of the hierarchical structure of the Universe. I report on the serendipitous discovery of 49 HI-rich galaxies in a short Open Time observation with MeerKAT, which make up multiple galaxy groups that were previously unknown. I present their properties such as their HI and stellar masses, and examples of galaxy interactions in the sample. This finding highlights the capability of MeerKAT for other serendipitous discoveries in a remarkably short amount of observing time, and the potential for many more such findings on existing Open Time datasets.