SA’s entry into the space race will be a radio telescope placed on the moon to explore areas in space that conventional radio telescopes cannot reach.
The culmination of a 10 year ambition, putting a proudly SA telescope on the moon.
The sphere-shaped telescopes, for now called four balls, will pick up signals that radio telescopes like the SKA will miss.
SARAO Africa Programme DR Carla Mitchell, “So on earth it’s nearly impossible to be able to do radio astronomy in those low frequencies but once you get out of the atmosphere into space and onto the moon surface you are able to look at the universe in a frequency that we can’t see on earth.
And hopefully the first time science on the far side of the moon is obviously the perfect place for radio astronomy because it’s shield it even from the earth.”
No SA astronaut will go into space, unfortunately, as the telescope will hitch a ride with a Chinese vessel.
“So currently it’s just the telescope but of course we hope that Africa can participate more in human missions to space stations and hopefully at one point we can have an astronaut on the moon that comes from Africa.”
If successful, more proudly African radio telescopes will call the moon home.
The ultimate goal is to deploy 55 antennas, one for each African nation.
–SABC–
