S.Africa's vast radio telescope draws new generation to the cosmos
Today, aged 25, her childhood vision has pretty much come true.
From her desk in Cape Town, Zondi monitors one of the world's largest radio telescopes, the MeerKAT, made up of 64 giant white dishes that stand in a semi-desert region 600 kilometres (370 miles) away.
Through the screen of her computer, she can tune into radio signals emitted by stars and galaxies light-years away using the massive antennae that are 13.5 metres (44 feet) in diametre and turned up to the heavens.
"This is so interesting and fascinating: we're collecting data from the universe," Zondi said of the job of telescope operator at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) that she started just two months ago.
Since 2005, SARAO has awarded 1,369 bursaries to students of applied mathematics, computer science, astrophysics and other subjects.
The bubbly engineering student is among them and part of a young generation of South Africans now able to look into the cosmos since the 2018 inauguration of the MeerKAT super radio telescope, which put the country on the map of global astronomy.
- World's most powerful -
As impressive as they are, the 64 dishes of the MeerKAT are just the start of an even bigger project, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory that will be the world's most powerful radio telescope when it is completed by 2030.
The project will hook up another 133 South African dishes and more than 131,000 antennae based in Western Australia to allow humans to look back billions of years to when the "first stars and galaxies started lighting up the darkness", according to SKAO.
In the seven years since it was launched in the remote and sparsely populated Karoo region, MeerKAT has already "pushed the boundaries of scientific knowledge," said Adrian Tiplady, SARAO deputy managing director.
Its feats include groundbreaking radio images of the centre of the Milky Way, the discovery of immense radio galaxies stretching across millions of light-years, and the tracking of cosmic ripples through spacetime.
And with the MeerKAT programme to help train young South Africans, it is also keeping an eye on its future.
"It really covers the broad base of skills needed to actively participate in a global astronomy enterprise," Tiplady said.
"It has meant that the youth of South Africa now are excited about science, engineering and technology. We've really grown from a handful of radio astronomers some 10 or 20 years ago to a thriving and diverse community," he said.
An astrophysics group at the University of the Western Cape has benefited.
In 2011, "it started with just one South African faculty (member) at the time… and one student doing the PhD", Mario Santos, 50, professor in the university's physics and astronomy department, said.
"Now we have about 25 students and six faculty members," he added, saying the growth was "completely" linked to MeerKAT's development and South Africa's selection as SKA host.
- Time machine -
In the control room at SARAO's offices in Cape Town, Zondi and her colleagues monitor the health of the antennae and send them instructions to execute observations requested by scientists from all over the world.
There have been more than 1,200 submissions for observation time since 2019, with the biggest share from local research teams, Tiplady said.
"The world is watching us, so we have to make things perfect," said Sipho Molefe, another telescope operator. The 34-year-old studied electrical engineering and never imagined he would be working in astronomy.
"It makes people dream," he said. "There's a feeling that we're contributing to a bigger and larger environment in terms of information and development of technology."
The quiet and empty Karoo from where the MeerKAT's sensitive antennae listen to the universe was identified as holding tremendous potential for South African astronomy in the 1990s.
The facility operates in a "radio quiet zone" where radio waves, cell phone signals and wireless connections are strictly controlled to prevent interference with the telescope's tracking.
'When we're building a telescope, it's almost like building a time machine," Tiplady said.
"Something like MeerKAT or the SKA will detect radio signals that have been travelling through the universe since the birth of the universe itself.'
'It's a true marvel of scientific and technical excellence... and we're proud of South Africa to be a part of this,' he told AFP.
jcb/br/kjm
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fast internet is getting in the way of understanding the universe, scientists warn
The rush for faster and more widely available internet is making it harder to understand the cosmos, according to scientists. SpaceX's Starlink satellites are intended to circle the Earth and offer fast internet in regions that might otherwise be underserved. The company has launched thousands of them in recent years, with a view to covering the planet with signals. But researchers have found that the satellites are interfering with radio astronomy, getting in the way of astronomers' view of space. The satellites leak out unintended signals that drown out the often very faint radio waves that astronomers use to see the universe. The new work from Curtin University looked specifically at SpaceX's Starlink because it has the most satellites in orbit. But a number of other companies are looking to use satellites to offer faster and more widely available internet. In the research, scientists gathered 76 million images of the sky using an early version of the Square Kilometre Array, which will be the world's biggest and most sensitive radio telescope when it is finished later this decade. In that data, scientists found more than 112,000 radio emissions from 1,806 Starlink satellites. Those emissions could make it much more difficult for scientists to see the important radio signals that they rely on. 'Starlink is the most immediate and frequent source of potential interference for radio astronomy: it launched 477 satellites during this study's four-month data collection period alone,' said Dylan Grigg, who led the study. 'In some datasets, we found up to 30 per cent of our images showed interference from a Starlink satellite.' Many of those signals were not being intentionally emitted from the satellites, and come more strongly at different frequencies than expected. That could make it difficult for researchers to pick them out. 'Some satellites were detected emitting in bands where no signals are supposed to be present at all, such as the 703 satellites we identified at 150.8 MHz, which is meant to be protected for radio astronomy,' Mr Grigg said. 'Because they may come from components like onboard electronics and they're not part of an intentional signal, astronomers can't easily predict them or filter them out.' That interference could eventually keep us from understanding deep truths of the cosmos, the researchers warned. 'We're standing on the edge of a golden era where the SKA will help answer the biggest questions in science: how the first stars formed, what dark matter is and even test Einstein's theories,' said Steven Tingay, who helped author the study. 'But it needs radio silence to succeed. We recognise the deep benefits of global connectivity but we need balance and that starts with an understanding of the problem, which is the goal of our work.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
06-07-2025
A beer pioneer, South Africa's 1st Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
JOHANNESBURG -- After pouring brown, gritty liquid from a huge silver tank into a flute-like container known as a refractometer, South African beer brewing master Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela gives an expert nod of approval and passes it around to her students, who yell their observations with glee. 'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.' The 41-year-old Nxusani-Mawela is an international beer judge and taster, and is believed to be the first Black woman in South Africa to own a craft brewery, a breakthrough in a world largely dominated by men and big corporations. Her desire is to open South Africa's multibillion-dollar beer-brewing industry to more Black people and more women. At her microbrewery in Johannesburg, she's teaching 13 young Black graduates — most of them women — the art of beer making. The students at the Brewsters Academy have chemical engineering, biotechnology or analytical chemistry degrees and diplomas, but are eager to get themselves an extra qualification for a possible career in brewing. Wearing hairnets and armed with barley grains and water, the scientists spend the next six hours on the day's lesson, learning how to malt, mill, mash, lauter, boil, ferment and filter to make the perfect pale ale. 'My favorite part is the mashing," said Lerato Banda, a 30-year-old chemical engineering student at the University of South Africa who has dreams of owning her own beer or beverage line. She's referring to the process of mixing crushed grains with hot water to release sugars, which will later ferment. "It's where the beer and everything starts.' Nxusani-Mawela's classes began in early June. Students will spend six months exploring beer varieties, both international and African, before another six months on work placement. Nxusani-Mawela's Tolokazi brewery is in the Johannesburg suburb of Wynberg, wedged between the poor Black township of Alexandra on one side and the glitzy financial district of Sandton — known as Africa's richest square mile — on the other. She hails from the rural town of Butterworth, some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, and first came across the idea of a career in beer at a university open day in Johannesburg. She started brewing as an amateur in 2007. She has a microbiology degree and sees beer making as a good option for those with a science background. 'I sort of fell in love with the combination of the business side with the science, with the craftsmanship and the artistic element of brewing,' she said. For the mother of two boys, beer brewing is also ripe for a shakeup. 'I wanted to make sure that being the first Black female to own a brewery in South Africa, that I'm not the first and the last,' she said. 'Brewsters Academy for me is about transforming the industry ... What I want to see is that in five, 10 years from now that it should be a norm to have Black people in the industry, it should be a norm to have females in the industry." South Africa's beer industry supports more than 200,000 jobs and contributes $5.2 billion to South Africa's gross domestic product, according to the most current Oxford Economics research in 'Beer's Global Economic Footprint.' While South Africa's brewing sector remains male-dominated, like most places, efforts are underway to include more women. One young woman at the classes, 24-year-old Lehlohonolo Makhethe, noted women were historically responsible for brewing beer in some African cultures, and she sees learning the skill as reclaiming a traditional role. "How it got male dominated, I don't know,' Makhethe said. 'I'd rather say we are going back to our roots as women to doing what we started.' While Nxusani-Mawela teaches all kinds of styles, she also is on a mission to keep alive traditional African beer for the next generation. Her Wild African Soul beer, a collaboration with craft beer company Soul Barrel Brewing, was the 2025 African Beer Cup champion. It's a blend of African Umqombothi beer — a creamy brew incorporating maize and sorghum malt — with a fruity, fizzy Belgian Saison beer. 'Umqombothi is our African way, and everybody should know how to make it, but we don't,' she said. 'I believe that the beer styles that we make need to reflect having an element of our past being brought into the future.' She's used all sorts of uniquely African flavors in her Tolokazi line, including the marula fruit and the rooibos bush that's native to South Africa and better-known for being used in a popular caffeine-free tea. 'Who could have thought of rooibos beer?' said Lethabo Seipei Kekae after trying the beer for the first time at a beer festival. 'It's so smooth. Even if you are not a beer drinker, you can drink it.'
Hamilton Spectator
06-07-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
A beer pioneer, South Africa's first Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — After pouring brown, gritty liquid from a huge silver tank into a flute-like container known as a refractometer, South African beer brewing master Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela gives an expert nod of approval and passes it around to her students, who yell their observations with glee. 'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.' The 41-year-old Nxusani-Mawela is an international beer judge and taster, and is believed to be the first Black woman in South Africa to own a craft brewery, a breakthrough in a world largely dominated by men and big corporations. Her desire is to open South Africa's multibillion-dollar beer-brewing industry to more Black people and more women. At her microbrewery in Johannesburg, she's teaching 13 young Black graduates — most of them women — the art of beer making. The science behind brewing The students at the Brewsters Academy have chemical engineering, biotechnology or analytical chemistry degrees and diplomas, but are eager to get themselves an extra qualification for a possible career in brewing. Wearing hairnets and armed with barley grains and water, the scientists spend the next six hours on the day's lesson, learning how to malt, mill, mash, lauter, boil, ferment and filter to make the perfect pale ale. 'My favorite part is the mashing,' said Lerato Banda, a 30-year-old chemical engineering student at the University of South Africa who has dreams of owning her own beer or beverage line. She's referring to the process of mixing crushed grains with hot water to release sugars, which will later ferment. 'It's where the beer and everything starts.' Nxusani-Mawela's classes began in early June. Students will spend six months exploring beer varieties, both international and African, before another six months on work placement. Beer is for everyone Nxusani-Mawela's Tolokazi brewery is in the Johannesburg suburb of Wynberg, wedged between the poor Black township of Alexandra on one side and the glitzy financial district of Sandton — known as Africa's richest square mile — on the other. She hails from the rural town of Butterworth, some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, and first came across the idea of a career in beer at a university open day in Johannesburg. She started brewing as an amateur in 2007. She has a microbiology degree and sees beer making as a good option for those with a science background. 'I sort of fell in love with the combination of the business side with the science, with the craftsmanship and the artistic element of brewing,' she said. For the mother of two boys, beer brewing is also ripe for a shakeup. 'I wanted to make sure that being the first Black female to own a brewery in South Africa, that I'm not the first and the last,' she said. 'Brewsters Academy for me is about transforming the industry ... What I want to see is that in five, 10 years from now that it should be a norm to have Black people in the industry, it should be a norm to have females in the industry.' South Africa's beer industry supports more than 200,000 jobs and contributes $5.2 billion to South Africa's gross domestic product, according to the most current Oxford Economics research in 'Beer's Global Economic Footprint.' While South Africa's brewing sector remains male-dominated, like most places, efforts are underway to include more women. One young woman at the classes, 24-year-old Lehlohonolo Makhethe, noted women were historically responsible for brewing beer in some African cultures, and she sees learning the skill as reclaiming a traditional role. 'How it got male dominated, I don't know,' Makhethe said. 'I'd rather say we are going back to our roots as women to doing what we started.' With an African flavor While Nxusani-Mawela teaches all kinds of styles, she also is on a mission to keep alive traditional African beer for the next generation. Her Wild African Soul beer, a collaboration with craft beer company Soul Barrel Brewing, was the 2025 African Beer Cup champion. It's a blend of African Umqombothi beer — a creamy brew incorporating maize and sorghum malt — with a fruity, fizzy Belgian Saison beer. 'Umqombothi is our African way, and everybody should know how to make it, but we don't,' she said. 'I believe that the beer styles that we make need to reflect having an element of our past being brought into the future.' She's used all sorts of uniquely African flavors in her Tolokazi line, including the marula fruit and the rooibos bush that's native to South Africa and better-known for being used in a popular caffeine-free tea. 'Who could have thought of rooibos beer?' said Lethabo Seipei Kekae after trying the beer for the first time at a beer festival. 'It's so smooth. Even if you are not a beer drinker, you can drink it.' ___ AP Africa news:
