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Industry News and Tender Update from SKA South Africa by Willem Esterhuyse, Meerkat Project Manager

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Industry News and Tender Update from SKA South Africa by Willem Esterhuyse, Meerkat Project Manager SKA South Africa Project Newsletter 128 March 2012 Newsletter March 2012 Ambitious road ahead for South African radio astronomy 1 Ambitious road ahead for International Astronomical Union Symposium on Cosmic Masers 2 South African radio astronomy Exploring space in partnership with IBM 2 While looking forward to the outcome of European Parliament calls for radio the SKA site bid, we are also working on astronomy partnerships with Africa 3 several other exciting and challenging radio astronomy projects, says Dr Bernie Fanaroff, KAT-7 moving towards operational Director of SKA South Africa. These include baseline milestone 3 the ground-breaking MeerKAT and the Industry news and tender update from establishment of an African VLBI Network. SKA South Africa 4 At the same time, several world-class science Exciting first images and data instruments are already operating within from KAT-7 5 South Africa’s Radio Astronomy Reserve in the Northern Cape. The success of the “PAPER” Roll-out of the SKA SA logistic support and “C-BASS” telescopes shows that the and maintenance system 5 science infrastructure that have been created KAT-7 engineering, commissioning and in the Karoo - including roads, buildings, SKA South Africa trainees in Cape Town working on science verification roadmap 6 electricity, optic fibre and more - are attracting hardware for the African VLBI Network - Raphael van Rensburg, Monde Manzini and Ruvano Capser are RadioNET FP7 Board Meeting in investments and top scientists from around the assisted by Obert Toruvanda, a member of the MeerKAT Cape Town 7 globe to do cutting-edge work in South Africa. engineering team. Student conference showcases South Africa’s SKA talent 8 A key stepping stone towards IAU Strategic Plan 9 Extra-galactic milestone for South Africa’s KAT-7 telescope 10 Towards Real-Time Global VLBI and an African VLBI network 11 Mission MeerKAT 12 More info on the SKA South Africa Project at www.ska.ac.za E-mail: [email protected] to subscribe to this newsletter of the SKA South Africa Project. An artist’s impression of 64-dish MeerKAT array. Construction on MeerKAT will start later in 2012 and the instrument should be ready to do science by 2016. SKA South Africa Project Newsletter March 2012 1 International Astronomical Union Symposium on Cosmic Masers (IAU S287), Stellenbosch from 29 January - 3 February By Roy Booth and Sharmila Goedhart, SKA South Africa “IAU S287 Cosmic Masers: from OH to H0” was a great success bringing astronomers from all corners of the world to South Africa to discuss the tantalizing properties of astrophysical masers and their use in astrometry, astrophysics and cosmology. Dr Bernie Fanaroff, Director of SKA South Africa, welcomed delegates ‘home’ by reminding everyone that their origins lie in South Africa. Delegates were treated to some excellent talks and reviews, including maser theory (Vladimir Strelnitski); polarization and magnetic fields (Wouter Vlemmings); masers associated with star formation (Anna Bartkiewicz and Huib van Langevelde); evolved stars (Anita Richards), cosmology (Christian Henkel), AGN and mega masers (Andrea Tarchi), astrometry (Mark Reid) and developments in maser physics (Karl Menten), as well as a talk on new instruments and their use for maser research Some 120 people, about half being research students, attended this fourth international (Al Wooten). maser symposium, held from 29 January to 3 February 2012 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The first cosmic maser, intense, narrow spectral line emission from the hydroxyl radical (OH) was discovered in 1965 and since that time many more maser species have been discovered including water, methanol, formaldehyde and silicon monoxide. They are observed in interstellar clouds and regions where stars are forming, as well as evolved stars, supernova remnants, comets and extra-galactic nuclei. Their narrow-band, beamed emission allows astronomers to derive precise information on their velocity and position and this can be used to measure the detailed dynamics of the Milky Way, its structure and even our distance from its centre. In other galaxies, masers are especially used to investigate nuclear phenomena and can even be used as cosmological probes to measure the Hubble constant, H0, with great precision. Exploring space in partnership with IBM Big data analytics may help MeerKAT telescope tackle vast data volumes for enhanced images of the sky SKA South Africa will be working with IBM by MeerKAT and future radio telescopes.” towards developing a next-generation big data The current method of analysis requires analytics platform with self-tuning and self- direct interaction with a computer for hours learning capabilities to better analyze large or days before the images can be used for volumes of radio astronomy data. The proposed research purposes. This practice is not only software may help automate the process of time-consuming, but it also requires experienced analyzing antenna-collected data allowing astronomers, making the radio sky accessible to astronomers to more effectively observe only a few experts. objects in space. The proposed joint research project South Africa’s MeerKAT array will require between SKA SA and IBM is to combine expert data analysis to make high quality maps available radio astronomy analysis software with of the sky. The telescope will have 64 dish machine-learning techniques currently under antennas (each 13.5 m in diameter) that is development at IBM Research. Beginning with sensitive to emission from cosmic sources at components from IBM’s Infosphere software for centimeter wavelengths. Huge volumes of data big data and IBM’s SPSS software for predictive need to be combined to make detailed images analysis, the initial phase is intended to program of radio emission from distant objects like computers to self-learn, adapt, and fine-tune The cutting edge KAT-7/MeerKAT control room in Cape black holes, spinning neutron stars, planets, and the analysis of radio telescope data under the Town. The analysis of large volumes of data is one of the major challenges for cutting-edge radio astronomy. galaxies. It will also map primeval gas before the watchful eye of an astronomer. galaxies formed, as observed at the edge of the The SKA will consist of a square kilometer visible universe. of collecting area spread out over thousands of “The goal of the proposed project is The analysis of MeerKAT data is a major separate dishes and flat-panel arrays, distributed to teach a computer to make perfect challenge. “A number of subtle effects need to over continental scales in order to obtain very images on its own,” says Dr Alain Biem, be corrected to make clear and accurate images high-resolution images. Data rates from the SKA an IBM Researcher who specializes in from interferometers like MeerKAT,” explains will be huge, rivaling the world’s Internet traffic. exploratory stream analytics. “A software Dr Jasper Horrell of SKA South Africa. “These Processing big data volumes, whether from platform like this may assist in enabling include variations in the instrument itself and scientific instruments, environmental sensors, or large survey instruments like MeerKAT effects such as those introduced by the earth’s international communication and commerce, will to process the trillions of bits of data per ionosphere. More intelligent software is needed require extreme automation and self-learning second they receive and make it available to enable astronomers to process and analyze capability by the software of the future. to astronomers around the world.” the enormous data rates that will be produced E-mail: [email protected] to subscribe to this newsletter of the SKA South Africa Project. SKA South Africa Project Office The MeerKAT Engineering Office Street address: 17 Baker St, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa Postal/Street address: SKA SA, 3rd Floor, The Park, Park Road, Pinelands, 7405, South Africa Postal address: PO Box 522940, Saxonwold, 2132 Tel: +27 (0)21 506 7300 Tel:SKA South+27 Africa(0)11 Project 442 2434Newsletter 2 March 2012 Directions at: http://www.ska.ac.za/contactus/index.php European Parliament calls for radio astronomy partnerships with Africa by Pilar Gomez, ISC Intelligence in Science, Brussels The European Parliament has called for greater Martínez Martínez, Vice-president of the EP and between 2014 and 2020. The European collaboration with Africa in the field of radio a member of the Committee on Development. Commission proposals for Horizon 2020 were astronomy, following its adoption of Written Judith Sargentini, a Vice-Chair for Delegation published, in November 2011. This marked the Declaration 45 on science capacity building for relations with South Africa, stated that “In beginning of a negotiation process that will last in Africa. Highlighting the value of research adopting this Written Declaration, Europe’s into 2013. infrastructures in promoting human capital elected representatives have sent a strong “Following the adoption of the declaration, development, addressing societal challenges message to their fellow policymakers about the a potential addition to Horizon 2020 could and facilitating inter-regional cooperation, future of European cooperation with Africa. emphasise the role of capacity building with a the declaration draws attention to Africa’s They have recognised that radio astronomy has particular focus on astronomy” added Teresa exceptional competitive advantages in the study a bright future in Africa and that Europe can
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