Derek Hanekom has taken over the department of science & technology after eight years as its deputy. Where does your interest in science come from?
I found my school years easy, but I wasn’t a model pupil, for sure, and never did my homework. I gravitated towards the humanities and started with law
Browsing: MeerKAT
SA universities have welcomed the establishment of the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Following the SKA Organisation’s announcement late last month that SA, Australia and New Zealand would share the R26bn project, local academics have spoken enthusiastically about
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is unlikely to win a Nobel prize, but will give deeper understanding to phenomena such as dark matter and how the universe started. Vishnu Vejjala, research chair in theoretical particle cosmology at the University of the Witwatersrand, said the US$2bn SKA
The fourth of April this year is a red-letter day on SA’s investment calendar. It is the date on which international board members of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will meet to decide whether the core site for the giant instrument will be built in SA or in Australia. Science & technology director-general
In a bus jouncing through arid Karoo hills, Prof Justin Jonas patiently tried to explain some of the theories and tenets of our universe — the Big Bang, the expansion of our universe and what we know of other things such as dark energy. “The latest Nobel prize in physics was basically for confirming that there is
Africa, the birthplace of the human species, has long been a magnet for archaeologists. Now SA wants to draw leading astrophysicists to the continent as well with the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an instrument that would be able to look back to the infancy of the universe
The government will soldier on with a multibillion-rand Karoo telescope that will allow astronomers to see billions of years back in time, regardless of what happens with a bid to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Deputy science & technology minister Derek Hanekom says the R1,1bn MeerKAT
An international panel of experts has declared that the MeerKAT radio telescope being built by the SA team preparing SA’s bid for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has passed its “preliminary design review” with “distinction”. MeerKAT is a 64-dish radio telescope
The universe still holds many mysteries. The SA engineers and scientists working at bringing the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), to SA are hoping
SA’s bid to host the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), could bring the country as much as €200m (R1,9bn) a year. This according to an inter-ministerial committee, which is leading SA’s bid for the project.