The largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere is due for its official launch next week, putting South Africa on the map as a destination for stargazing tourists, the country’s science minister said Friday.
President Thabo Mbeki will formally initiate the Southern African Large Telescope, or SALT, on Thursday at an observatory near the town of Sutherland in the remote and arid Karoo region, famed for its big skies.
“This puts us on the map as an astronomy destination. We are able to use our geographic advantage, as the Karoo is very dry and clear and good for observing the universe,” said Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena.
“There are also certain areas of the universe that are better viewed from the Southern Hemisphere,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way, can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere but not from northern latitudes, and are close enough for detailed study.
“We see a lot of scientists coming this way, but also ordinary people who are coming to Sutherland to see our telescopes,” Mangena said. “So science tourism is likely to be boosted from the launch of SALT.”
Hexagon made of hexagons
SALT is a massive hexagon 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, comprising many smaller mirrored hexagons.
SALT will enable scientists to view stars and galaxies a billion times too faint to be visible to the naked eye.
It will also probe quasars, which resemble bright stars but may in fact be black holes at the center of galaxies, representing some of the most distant objects in the universe.
The light reaching us now was emitted billions of years ago when those galaxies were young, and thus such observations could shed clues on the evolution of the universe.
Reaching for the SKA
Mangena also said South Africa was bidding for an even bigger astronomical prize — to build and host the Square Kilometer Array, an international project that will be the largest telescope ever built and is estimated to cost in the region of $1 billion.
“We are bidding to host the SKA and are building a smaller version of it in the Karoo to show that we have the capability to build the big one,” he said.
He said the winning country was expected to be announced in 2008. The SKA will consist of many small antennas, with a dense inner core.
Scientists hope it will help them trace the origin of the stars and galaxies and understand how planets are formed.