The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA), established in 2015, is a partnership of three South African universities: the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria and the University of the Western Cape with the aims to build capacity and expertise in data intensive astronomy in the partner institutions and to provide systems and solutions for converting data … Read More
UPDATE: Position is now filled. IDIA is seeking an experienced systems administrator to join a team that works on supporting OpenStack cloud systems for use by IDIA researchers. Experience working with big data projects in areas such as Astronomy, High Energy Physics, Omics or Earth Observation Science will be an asset. The systems administrator will work closely with the IDIA systems and … Read More
The CARTA development team is excited to announce that CARTA v3.0 is now released! The development team has tried hard to elevate CARTA to a higher level over the last 14 months by adding important new features via three beta releases. In addition to the feature development, we also spent a significant amount of time refactoring the codebase so that … Read More
By Roger Deane and Iniyan Natarajan Astronomers have revealed the first image of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The image was produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, an international team made up of over 300 scientists on five continents – including Africa. Black holes were predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity over a … Read More
We are delighted to welcome Prof. Jaqueline Golden who will tell us about her award-winning Citizen Science project “Diamonds on the soles of their feet”. The talk will take place on 25 May 2022 at 13:00 in seminar room 1.35 the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of the Western Cape. It will also be streamed online on zoom. … Read More
Dr. Lameck Amugongo is a DARA Big Data alum who has been part of ur hackathons before. This week, he takes the resources compiled on this OAD page and runs with it at the Namibia University of Science and Technology with a new generation of student-hackers keen to develop their data science skills. A rich programme with researchers and scientists … Read More
A new paper by the MIGHTEE-HI team reveals the connection between the direction of spin of galaxies and underlying large scale web of structure fund in the universe. Using a sample of 77 galaxies that are also known from other observations, the scientists calculated the axis around which the galaxies are spinning. If the background intergalactic distribution of matter (ordinary … Read More
Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory together with colleagues from twelve other countries have discovered a powerful megamaser – a radio-wavelength laser indicative of colliding galaxies. This is the most distant … Read More
On April 8, 2022, we are glad to welcome Mr. Jonathan Freese from the Western Cape Education Department. Mr. Freese is Deputy Chief Education Specialist: Technology Senior Phase and WCED Coding and Robotics Coordinator. His talk, entitled “Past, Present and Future Perspective of the African 21st Century Science and Technology” will describe some of the work he is doing, among … Read More
Astronomy’s newest mystery objects, odd radio circles or ORCs, have been pulled into sharp focus by an international team of astronomers using the world’s most capable radio telescopes. Cape Town – 22 March 2022 First revealed by the ASKAP radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, odd radio circles quickly became objects of fascination. Theories on … Read More
