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The first image from South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope shows that the telescope “will be a remarkable discovery machine”, MeerKAT chief scientist Dr Fernando Camilo said on Saturday. “The images tell us all that MeerKAT is the best telescope of its kind in the southern hemisphere, with only 16 dishes,” he told an assembled audience of … Read more
It can happen in the blink of an eye: millions of light years away a star collapses in on itself. From Earth, that cataclysmic event is only a sudden brightening of a point in the night sky, and on the ground, astronomers scramble to investigate it. A new telescope, to be installed at South Africa’s … Read more
South Africa’s radio astronomy ambitions are feeling the pinch of austerity as Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s 2016 budget cuts its Square Kilometre Array (SKA) allocation by R250-million. (*The department later noted that this was an error in the budget. The budget decreased by R89-million.) The SKA will be the largest radio telescope in the world, … Read more
Rows of racks hum in an underground bunker, hidden from the scorching sun and the sensitive radio antennas that dot the desert landscape in the Northern Cape. All processing capacity for South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursor telescope, MeerKAT, has to be buried so that it will not interfere the dishes which will detect … Read more
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) phase one will now move into its final pre-construction phase, smaller than initially anticipated but within the EUR650-million budget cap. Construction will begin in 2018. The giant telescope, which will comprise thousands of antennae in Australia and Africa, with the core in South Africa, will be the largest scientific experiment … Read more
African ministers of science and technology will return home this week with a plan to ready their countries for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and a network of radio telescopes on the continent. The giant telescope, which will comprise thousands of antennae in Australia and Africa with the core in South Africa, will be the … Read more