South Africa: A Giant Radio Telescope Attracts Youth to the Cosmos

From her office in Cape Town, a young woman is responsible for monitoring the MeerKAT, a massive radio telescope consisting of 64 large white antennas located in a semi-desert region 600 kilometers away.

On her computer screen, the engineering student can capture radio signals emitted by stars and galaxies light-years away, thanks to the 13.5-meter diameter antennas that point towards the sky.

"It’s so interesting and fascinating! We are collecting data from the universe," exclaims Lungelo Zondi, talking about her role as an operator at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which she began just two months ago.

Since the inauguration of the MeerKAT super telescope in 2018, which put the country on the global astronomy map, many young South Africans have come to work there, captivated by the cosmos.

SARAO has awarded 1,369 scholarships to students in applied mathematics, computer science, astrophysics, and more since the project's inception in 2005.

The 64 antennas of the MeerKAT, as impressive as they are, are just the beginning of an even larger project: the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory, which will be the world’s most powerful ground-based radio telescope when completed by 2030.

The project aims to connect 133 South African dishes and over 131,000 antennas based in Australia to look back billions of years to when "the first stars and galaxies began to illuminate the darkness," according to the project’s website.

Since its launch in 2018 in the remote and sparsely populated Karoo desert, MeerKAT has already "pushed the boundaries of scientific knowledge," estimates Adrian Tiplady, deputy managing director of SARAO, in an interview with AFP.

Among its discoveries are unprecedented radio images of the center of the Milky Way, the identification of enormous radio galaxies stretching millions of light-years, and the tracking of cosmic ripples through space-time.

"We have gone from a handful of radio astronomers 10 or 20 years ago to a thriving and diverse community," Mr. Tiplady proudly notes.

The astrophysics group at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), one of the largest in the country, has benefited from this growth. "It started with just one faculty member back then (in 2011) and a PhD student," recalls Mario Santos, 50, a professor in the physics and astronomy department. "Today, we have about 25 students and six faculty members."

Time Machine

In the control room at SARAO’s offices in Cape Town, Lungelo Zondi and her colleagues monitor the functioning of the antennas and send them instructions to perform observations requested by scientists from around the world.

Since 2019, there have been over 1,200 requests for observation time, the majority coming from local research teams, according to Mr. Tiplady.

"The world is watching us, so we have to do things perfectly," says another operator, Sipho Molefe. The 34-year-old electrical engineering student never imagined he would work in the field of astronomy.

The Karoo region, where the MeerKAT antennas listen to the universe, was identified in the 1990s as having enormous potential for astronomy.

The MeerKAT operates in a "radio silence zone," where radio waves, cell phone signals, and wireless connections are strictly controlled to prevent any interference.

"It’s as if we are building a time machine," says Mr. Tiplady.

"Projects like MeerKAT or SKA will detect radio signals that have traveled through the universe since its birth."

"It’s a true marvel of scientific and technical excellence," he states. "We are proud that South Africa is participating in this endeavor."