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MeerKAT
MeerKAT, originally the Karoo Array Telescope, is a radio telescope consisting of 64 antennas in the Meerkat National Park, in the Northern Cape of South Africa. In 2003, South Africa submitted an expression of interest to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Radio Telescope in Africa, and the locally designed and built MeerKAT was incorporated into the first phase of the SKA. MeerKAT was launched in 2018. Along with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), also in South Africa, and two radio telescopes in Western Australia, the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), the MeerKAT is one of four precursors to the final SKA. History MeerKAT is a precursor for the SKA-mid array, as are the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Description It is located on the SKA site in the Karoo, and is a pathfinder for SKA-mid technologies and science. It w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meerkat National Park
Meerkat National Park is a large National Park in the Northern Cape, South Africa, that encompasses the Square Kilometre Array, MeerKAT and HERA telescopes. To ensure long term viability of the Karoo site for the MeerKAT and the SKA, and for other radio astronomy instruments, the South African Parliament passed the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act, in 2007. The act gives the Minister of Science and Technology the authority to protect areas, through regulations, that are of strategic national importance for astronomy and related scientific endeavours. The park does not allow visitors. History The National Research Foundation purchased privately owned rangeland, removed livestock from the area and placed it under the protection of SANParks. In 2020, this park was declared in partnership with the National Research Foundation and the Square Kilometre Array project. It added 3.4% to South Africa's national parks. One of the objectives in creating the park was to increase the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Square Kilometre Array
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), and headquarters, are located at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom. The SKA cores are being built in the southern hemisphere, where the view of the Milky Way galaxy is the best and radio interference at its least. Conceived in the 1990s, and further developed and designed by the late-2010s, when completed a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometre. It will operate over a wide range of frequencies and its size will make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument. If built as planned, it should be able to survey the sky more than ten thousand times faster than before. With receiving stations extending out to a distance of at least from a concentrated central core, it will exploi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen Epoch Of Reionization Array
The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) is a radio telescope dedicated to observing large scale structure during and prior to the epoch of reionization. HERA is a Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursor instrument, intended to observe the early universe and to assist in the design of the full SKA. Along with MeerKAT, also in South Africa, and two radio telescopes in Western Australia, the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), the HERA is one of four precursors to the final SKA. It is located in the Meerkat National Park. Motivation There is a large time interval between the universe's recombination epoch ( z=1100) and the time (z = 7±1) after which intergalactic gas is largely reionized. Studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have shown the structure of the universe at the start of this interval, and deep optical surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey show the structure after this time interval, but there is little ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinforced Concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ductility. The reinforcement is usually, though not necessarily, steel bars (rebar) and is usually embedded passively in the concrete before the concrete sets. However, post-tensioning is also employed as a technique to reinforce the concrete. In terms of volume used annually, it is one of the most common engineering materials. In corrosion engineering terms, when designed correctly, the alkalinity of the concrete protects the steel rebar from corrosion. Description Reinforcing schemes are generally designed to resist tensile stresses in particular regions of the concrete that might cause unacceptable cracking and/or structural failure. Modern reinforced concrete can contain varied reinforcing materials made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Astronomical Observatory
South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics. The primary telescopes are located in Sutherland, which is from Observatory, Cape Town, where the headquarters is located. The SAAO has links worldwide for scientific and technological collaboration. Instrumental contributions from the South African Astronomical Observatory include the development of a spherical aberration corrector and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The Noon Gun on Cape Town's Signal Hill is fired remotely by a time signal from the Observatory. History The history of the SAAO began when the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 1820, the first scientific institution in Africa. Construction of the main buildings was complet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest (after Johannesburg). Colloquially named the ''Mother City'', it is the largest city of the Western Cape province, and is managed by the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. The other two capitals are Pretoria, the executive capital, located in Gauteng, where the Presidency is based, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital in the Free State, where the Supreme Court of Appeal is located. Cape Town is ranked as a Beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. The city is known for its harbour, for its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region, and for landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point. Cape Town is home to 66% of the Western Cape's population. In 2014, Cape Town was named the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory
The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is a radio astronomy observatory, located in a natural bowl of hills at Hartebeesthoek just south of the Magaliesberg mountain range, Gauteng, South Africa, about 50 km west of Johannesburg. It is a National Research Facility run by South Africa's National Research Foundation. HartRAO was the only major radio astronomy observatory in Africa until the construction of the KAT-7 test bed for the future MeerKAT array. History The observatory was originally named Deep Space Station 51 (DSS51) and was built in 1961 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In this role the station assisted in tracking many unmanned United States space missions, including the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft (which landed on the Moon or mapped it from orbit), the Mariner missions (which explored the planets Venus and Mars) and the Pioneer missions (which measured the Sun's winds). The first Mars surface ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VLBI
Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. The distance between the radio telescopes is then calculated using the time difference between the arrivals of the radio signal at different telescopes. This allows observations of an object that are made simultaneously by many radio telescopes to be combined, emulating a telescope with a size equal to the maximum separation between the telescopes. Data received at each antenna in the array include arrival times from a local atomic clock, such as a hydrogen maser. At a later time, the data are correlated with data from other antennas that recorded the same radio signal, to produce the resulting image. The resolution achievable using interferometry is proportional to the observing frequency. The VLBI technique enables the distance between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naledi Pandor
Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor (née Matthews; born 7 December 1953) is a South African politician, educator and academic serving as the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation since 2019. She has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the African National Congress (ANC) since 1994. Born in Durban, Pandor completed high school in Botswana. She qualified as a teacher and taught at multiple schools and universities, whilst she achieved various degrees from different universities. Pandor took office as a Member of Parliament in 1994. She soon became Deputy Chief Whip of the ANC caucus in 1995. She was elected Deputy Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces in 1998 and became chairperson in 1999. She initially became a member of the national cabinet in 2004, following President Thabo Mbeki's decision to appoint her as Minister of Education. She retained her post in the cabinet of Kgalema Motlanthe. Newly elected President Jacob Zuma named her Minister of Scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum emitted by astronomical objects, just as optical telescopes are the main observing instrument used in traditional optical astronomy which studies the light wave portion of the spectrum coming from astronomical objects. Unlike optical telescopes, radio telescopes can be used in the daytime as well as at night. Since astronomical radio sources such as planets, stars, nebulas and galaxies are very far away, the radio waves coming from them are extremely weak, so radio telescopes require very large antennas to collect enough radio energy to study them, and extremely sensitive receiving equipment. Radio telescopes are typically large parabolic ("dish") antennas similar to those employed in trackin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Mabuza
David Dabede "DD" Mabuza (born 25 August 1960) is a South African politician who has been Deputy President of South Africa since February 2018. He was the Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC) from December 2017 to December 2022 and was previously the Premier of Mpumalanga from 2009 to 2018, throughout the presidency of his former political ally Jacob Zuma. A native of rural Mpumalanga and a teacher by training, Mabuze's initial engagement in politics was through the Black Consciousness movement, while he was a student, and then through teachers' unions; he was chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, an affiliate of the influential Congress of South African Trade Unions, from 1988 to 1991. After the end of apartheid in 1994, he joined the Mpumalanga provincial legislature as an ANC representative and took up a series of ministerial posts in the Mpumalanga Executive Council. He was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee for the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SKA Site, South Africa 2014 47
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads. Music historians typically divide the history of ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock forming ska-punk; and third wave ska, which involved bands from a wide range of countri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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