“It is going to be amazing. We might finally be able to answer the question: are we alone in the universe?”
Dr Nadeem Oozeer, an Operations and Commissioning Scientist from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), spoke these words to a captive audience at this year’s Scifest. The SKA is, in short, a telescope that a number of countries in the southern hemisphere are competing for in an effort to be the host of the largest, strongest radio telescope in the world. South Africa is one of those countries.
“It is going to be amazing. We might finally be able to answer the question: are we alone in the universe?”
Dr Nadeem Oozeer, an Operations and Commissioning Scientist from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), spoke these words to a captive audience at this year’s Scifest. The SKA is, in short, a telescope that a number of countries in the southern hemisphere are competing for in an effort to be the host of the largest, strongest radio telescope in the world. South Africa is one of those countries.
The telescope, costing R25 billion, will be built in a remote and generally inhospitable environment so as to be as far away from people as possible. As it is a radio telescope (using radio waves as opposed to an optical telescope which uses light waves), a signal as low as that of a cell phone would interrupt its frequency. The importance of a radio telescope is that it can see much more than an optical telescope.
Its radio waves can penetrate the atmosphere, making the problem of clouds and daylight obsolete. It will be able to survey the sky 10 000 times faster than any telescope before it, and with its ability to detect organic molecules, the opportunity of discovering other planets like our own increases drastically. “The universe is made up of 75 percent Dark Energy, 21 percent Dark Matter and 4 percent Normal Matter. The 4 percent is all we can actually know, the rest we infer is there,” said Oozeer. “But with this telescope we will be able to see much, much more”.
South Africa is competing against Australia and New Zealand to win the SKA bid. South Africa's bid promotes the use of the Karoo in the Northern Cape as an ideal area on which to build this phenomenon. If located in South Africa, the SKA antennas would extend into the partner countries: Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Zambia, Kenya and Ghana. In 2007, the Astronomy Advantage Act was passed, which protects the region from infiltration of any kind that would affect radio or optical astronomy. As it stands, South Africa fills all the requirements implemented by the judging panel, which consists of four countries: Italy, the Netherlands, the U.K and China. “The climatic conditions are perfect, the Karoo is a radio-quiet environment, there is excellent infrastructure already in place and South Africa has 200 years of experience in radio astronomy,” said Oozeer. What could be better?
This telescope will change the face of astronomy, but it will also do much more at a localised level. The project will create employment at every stage of its being, from the physical construction labour to the overall design and management of the project. “We will also be providing bursary programmes for learners throughout South Africa,” said Oozeer, “in which they will eventually help on the project.” The Department of Education and the Department of Science and Technology are also working together to try and implement the SKA project into the school syllabus to create awareness. The project hopes to have a site selected this year, but the telescope will only be in use from 2024.
