editorial Corrected: Publisher Correction Dark nights bring a bright dawn The relatively dark sky over Africa and the continent’s rich human resources are a boon for the growing development initiatives driven by astronomy.

frica is a continent rich in resources. their experience and technical expertise is MeerKAT, a 64-dish precursor to the mid- Take one of the most obvious: land. elsewhere, enriching alternative highly frequency part of the SKA in neighbouring AAfrica constitutes roughly 20% of skilled industries. South Africa. Funded by the South African the world’s landmass, and contains 15% of The other commodity available from government, it is a local enterprise that will the world’s arable land, yet it only produces a dark sky is data. Data can be mined become a global resource, and is already 10% of the world’s food. Its resources are for knowledge, and knowledge creation producing science results (see the Mission underutilized. Improved efficiency can be is increasingly becoming embraced by Control by Fernando Camilo). delivered in a number of ways: merging developed economies to drive growth. A bright future for African astronomy smaller farmsteads into larger farms, However, to turn electromagnetic radiation is connected to interferometry. The Event developing transportation infrastructure to from the Universe into data, astronomers Horizon Telescope (EHT) Network is an make journeys to market more accessible, need facilities: observatories and telescopes international team striving to image the boosting farming technologies with better and instruments and computers, and in that supermassive black hole at the centre of our seeds, irrigation and fertilizer, and so on. Other sense Africa is also underdeveloped for its Galaxy by linking a number of telescopes repositories of wealth include oil, minerals size: there are relatively few professional across the globe in a very long baseline and most valuably, people — acting both as observatories. We learned about Morocco’s interferometry (VLBI) experiment. Despite consumers and as employees in a workforce. Oukaïmeden Observatory in our May issue. observing runs including the Atacama Large One item that will not be appearing in In this issue, Mirjana Pović et al. give a Millimeter/submillimeter Array in the many lists of African resources is extremely comprehensive overview of the development Southern Hemisphere in the last two years, prized by astronomers: access to a dark of professional astronomy and space science initial indications are that the data will not sky. The night sky generates two precious be sufficient to image the event horizon commodities. The first is inspiration of Sagittarius A*. This month’s cover story (as suggested by a Comment in this issue examines the ability to test the different by Vanessa McBride et al.). Inspiration is a theories of gravity using EHT data in its key driver for education and the power of 2017 configuration. A proposal is underway astronomy to inspire, channelled through to put a small submillimetre telescope in projects funded by the International Namibia — the Africa Millimetre Telescope Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy — that would increase the uv coverage of the for Development, can produce observable EHT by lengthening the east–west extent of changes in literacy levels of African the VLBI array in the Southern Hemisphere. children, for instance. Literacy rates in The major initiative in Africa in the sub-Saharan African adults are some 20 next 10–20 years will be the SKA, which points below the global average. In this way, will have dishes in South Africa and astronomy can stimulate development in a eight neighbouring countries, as well as a

much-needed area. NASA Credit: counterpart in Australia. In South Africa Those Africans with a reasonably high alone, a 12.5 million hectare reserve in level of education have the opportunity to facilities and initiatives in Africa, and the the Karoo Desert has been created to host be trained in specialist skills, for instance consequential benefits this development the initial deployment of 133 dishes in a through the Development in Africa with will bring in terms of education, reduction radio-frequency interference-free zone. In Radio Astronomy project (see the Comment of poverty, and attainment of the United the 2030s, this interferometric array will by Melvin Hoare). This partnership between Nations Sustainable Development Goals. extend to Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, Namibia, the UK, South Africa and several other In addition, we hear in more depth about Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique and African countries aims to create the first two southern African telescopes that are Mauritius. Many of these countries currently generation of radio astronomers in Africa, converting different kinds of light into have little or no astronomy activity. including them at the inception of large scientifically useful information: the High It is clear that Africa has a lot to astronomical operations like the African Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) in offer, and with significant investment in VLBI Network and the Square Kilometre Namibia, and the brand-new MeerKAT intercontinental partnerships and knowledge Array (SKA). The idea behind the project array in South Africa. HESS is an imaging transfer, Africa’s blossoming success in is to nurture self-sustaining professional atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (IACT) science and technology will benefit itself and astronomy groups all over the continent, array, one of only four IACTs in the the rest of the world. ❐ using, maintaining and developing the world, and the only one in the Southern upcoming observing facilities. Even those Hemisphere. Director Mathieu de Naurois students who choose not to continue provides an overview of the array in a Published online: 3 July 2018 in astronomy-related careers will take Mission Control. A significantly larger array https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0535-8

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