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The SKA in Africa
A major component of the SKA telescope will be an
extensive array of approximately 3 000 antennas. Half
of these will be concentrated in a 5 km diameter central
region, and the rest will be distributed out to 3 000 km
from this central concentration. South Africa's bid
proposes that the core of the telescope be located in
an arid area of the Northern Cape Province of the
Republic of South Africa, with about three antenna
stations in Namibia, four in Botswana and one each in
Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya and Zambia.
Each antenna station will consist of about 30 individual
antennas.
These antennas will all be connected via a data
communications network to a very large and powerful
data processing facility on the core SKA site in the
Northern Cape Province. The combined collecting area
of all these antennas will add up to one square kilometre.
The telescope will be operated and monitored remotely
from Cape Town, where the operations and science
centre will be located.
The SKA will be one of the largest scientific research
facilities in the world and will consolidate Southern Africa
as a major hub for astronomy in the world. It will attract
the best scientists and engineers to work in Africa and
will provide unrivalled opportunities for scientists and
engineers from African countries to engage with transformational
science and cutting edge instrumentation and
to collaborate in joint projects with the most renowned
universities and research institutions in the world.
Hosting the SKA would be a major accomplishment
for the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Programme
(AGAP), an initiative by the South African government to
establish a hub of world-class astronomy facilities in
Southern Africa. Other major astronomy facilities in the
region include the Southern African Large Telescope
(SALT) in the Karoo, and the HESS gamma ray telescope
in Namibia.
The Karoo region of the Northern Cape
Province is ideal for radio astronomy,
because it is remote and sparsely populated,
with a very dry climate. There is minimal
radio frequency interference from man-made
sources such as cellular phones and broadcast
transmitters, and the lack of commercial
activity in the area will ensure that this radio
quietness will continue into the future.
South Africa's Parliament passed the
Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act of
2007, which declares the Northern Cape
Province as an astronomy advantage area.
An area of 12.5 million hectares around the
proposed core of the SKA will be protected
as a radio astronomy reserve, with strict
regulations controlling the generation and
transmission of interfering radio signals in
the reserve and the area around it.
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