Derrick
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From Sapa:
Collaboration between SA and Australia to develop the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will stimulate academic exchange, Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena said on Wednesday.
The two countries had committed approximately €150 million (about R1.9 billion) towards the SKA programme, said the department.
Mangena and Australian Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, were meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday.
Despite the two countries competing to host the telescope, they would work together to develop a scientific and technical programme for the SKA pathfinder telescopes – the South African Meerkat and the Australian SKA Pathfinder.
This partnership was expected to enhance the scientific impact of both telescopes. Astronomers would be able to make us of the complementary nature of the two SKA pathfinder facilities.
The countries also agreed to work closely together to promote awareness in the international community of the scientific value and wide-ranging benefits of the SKA.
The project’s international director Prof Richard Schilizzi said last week that the telescope, consisting of up to 3000 receiving dishes, each 12 to 15 metres across, would be designed to pick up radio rather than light waves. It would be 50 times more sensitive than any of its type yet built.
Scientists wanted to use it to study emissions generated when the first stars and galaxies were formed, some 750 million years after the “big bang” that gave birth to the universe 14 000 million years ago.
Collaboration between SA and Australia to develop the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will stimulate academic exchange, Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena said on Wednesday.
The two countries had committed approximately €150 million (about R1.9 billion) towards the SKA programme, said the department.
Mangena and Australian Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, were meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday.
Despite the two countries competing to host the telescope, they would work together to develop a scientific and technical programme for the SKA pathfinder telescopes – the South African Meerkat and the Australian SKA Pathfinder.
This partnership was expected to enhance the scientific impact of both telescopes. Astronomers would be able to make us of the complementary nature of the two SKA pathfinder facilities.
The countries also agreed to work closely together to promote awareness in the international community of the scientific value and wide-ranging benefits of the SKA.
The project’s international director Prof Richard Schilizzi said last week that the telescope, consisting of up to 3000 receiving dishes, each 12 to 15 metres across, would be designed to pick up radio rather than light waves. It would be 50 times more sensitive than any of its type yet built.
Scientists wanted to use it to study emissions generated when the first stars and galaxies were formed, some 750 million years after the “big bang” that gave birth to the universe 14 000 million years ago.