News

NEW RELEASE OF CARTA V4-BETA

A new beta version of the Cube Analysis and Rendering Tool for Astronomy (CARTA), version 4.0-beta, has been released, and is available from the  IDIA CARTA beta server at https://carta-beta.idia.ac.za. Download instructions for other users can be found on the CARTA homepage.  Highlights of this release include: Interactive position-velocity (PV) preview Saving and restoring a workspace (i.e. the current state of CARTA) Image … Read More

CARTA 3.0 Released

The CARTA development team is excited to announce that CARTA v3.0 is now released! The development team has tried hard to elevate CARTA to a higher level over the last 14 months by adding important new features via three beta releases. In addition to the feature development, we also spent a significant amount of time refactoring the codebase so that … Read More

African scientists and technology could drive future black hole discoveries

By Roger Deane and Iniyan Natarajan Astronomers have revealed the first image of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The image was produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, an international team made up of over 300 scientists on five continents – including Africa. Black holes were predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity over a … Read More

Diamonds on the soles of their feet – SEADS Talk by Prof. Jaqueline Goldin

We are delighted to welcome Prof. Jaqueline Golden who will tell us about her award-winning Citizen Science project “Diamonds on the soles of their feet”. The talk will take place on 25 May 2022 at 13:00 in seminar room 1.35 the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of the Western Cape. It will also be streamed online on zoom. … Read More

Independently organised hackathon running this week in Namibia

Dr. Lameck Amugongo is a DARA Big Data alum who has been part of ur hackathons before. This week, he takes the resources compiled on this OAD page and runs with it at the Namibia University of Science and Technology with a new generation of student-hackers keen to develop their data science skills. A rich programme with researchers and scientists … Read More

Are galaxies spinning in alignment with the cosmic web?

A new paper by the MIGHTEE-HI team reveals the connection between the direction of spin of galaxies and underlying large scale web of structure fund in the universe. Using a sample of 77 galaxies that are also known from other observations, the scientists calculated the axis around which the galaxies are spinning. If the background intergalactic distribution of matter (ordinary … Read More

Megamaser “Nkalakatha” discovered by astronomers using MeerKAT

Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory together with colleagues from twelve other countries have discovered a powerful megamaser – a radio-wavelength laser indicative of colliding galaxies. This is the most distant … Read More

SEADS TaLK: Past, Present and Future Perspective of the African 21st Century Science and Technology

On April 8, 2022, we are glad to welcome Mr. Jonathan Freese from the Western Cape Education Department. Mr. Freese is Deputy Chief Education Specialist: Technology Senior Phase and WCED Coding and Robotics Coordinator. His talk, entitled “Past, Present and Future Perspective of the African 21st Century Science and Technology” will describe some of the work he is doing, among … Read More

Astronomers reveal best image yet of mysterious ORCs in space

Astronomy’s newest mystery objects, odd radio circles or ORCs, have been pulled into sharp focus by an international team of astronomers using the world’s most capable radio telescopes. Cape Town – 22 March 2022 First revealed by the ASKAP radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, odd radio circles quickly became objects of fascination. Theories on … Read More

New MeerKAT radio image reveals complex heart of the Milky Way

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has released today a new MeerKAT telescope image of the centre of our Galaxy, showing radio emission from the region with unprecedented clarity and depth. The international team behind the work is publishing the initial science highlights from this image in The Astrophysical Journal. The article is accompanied by a public release of the data to … Read More