MeerKAT, the precursor to the square kilometre array (SKA) radio telescope, part of which will be situated in the Northern Cape, is being given a high priority in the Department of Science and Technology’s budget. During her budget vote speech on 16 May, minister Naledi Pandor announced that the Research Development and Support Programme will transfer R693 million to the National Research Foundation to ensure the completion of MeerKAT, as a key priority for 2017/18. Students sponsored by SKA SA and staff members were invited to attend her speech to parliament in the gallery.
“The SKA will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. Key economic benefits from this investment will be the leveraging of foreign direct investment from the SKA Organisation for construction costs of phase 1 of SKA,” Pandor said.
Prior to her speech, the minister embarked on a tour of the exhibition at the Iziko Museum, where SKA SA joined other exhibitors for the showcase. During this visit, SKA SA chief scientist Dr Fernando Camilo and SKA SA head of science commissioning Dr Sharmila Goedhart, released to the Minister the recent AR1.5 results, images achieved by using various configurations of the 32 antennas currently operational in the Karoo. This milestone of the integration of 32 antennas with single polarisation correlator was achieved on schedule by the end of March 2017. The 32 antennas are part of the eventual 64 instruments which are being built at the Losberg site in the Northern Cape.
The highlights of these images were:
• The view of the hydrogen gas in M83, a famous galaxy discovered in Cape Town in 1752, generated by MeerKAT. The image was done with the MeerKAT configuration using seven 50-minute exposures – achieving this detail and sensitivity much faster than any previous observations.
• A linear feature – a radio galaxy – that is 4 million light years long, identifying it as a Giant Radio Galaxy, the first such extreme object identified by MeerKAT.
• A star-forming region in the Milky Way. The previous best image of this star-forming region was obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The MeerKAT image is sharper and more sensitive, and shows fainter features with additional detail.
• The increased observation power of MeerKAT through demonstrating the images taken with KAT-7 in 2012, MeerKAT-4 in 2016, MeerKAT-16 in 2016 and MeerKAT-16 in 2017. The same black hole was observed with the increasingly improved arrays of antennas.
• The first radio image of a distant spiral galaxy, showing both the visible light and the radio waves which left this galaxy 230 million years ago.
For more information visit www.ska.ac.za
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