Interesting articles

  • The Planetarium: Eighty-year-old Virtual Reality
    Every year, about 90 million people around the world visit a planetarium. They come to see the skies of 2,000 years ago over Bethlehem, to learn how to find Scorpius and Sagittarius, or just to chill-out under the Milky Way. Nowadays, they also come to see the latest view of the rocky deserts of Mars, sent back to Earth by NASA's Spirit rover, re-created as the rover sees it - all around you. Source: Johannesburg Planetarium

  • Superbubbles
    Radio continuum emission is the broadband radiation emitted in the radio part of the spectrum by celestial objects. Its intensity (brightness temperature) typically varies relatively slowly as a function of wavelength (or frequency). This is in contrast to the narrow emission lines produced at characteristic frequencies by atoms and molecules. Continuum observations can be made with all installed receivers at HartRAO. Source: HartRAO

  • Masers
    In the the space between the stars are found clouds of gas, from which the stars formed. These clouds consist mainly of the simplest atom, hydrogen. More massive atoms such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen are created within stars by nuclear fusion. These atoms are returned to space in the winds given off by stars and when stars explode. Source: HartRAO

  • Pulsars
    Pulsar observations are carried out with a single channel pulsar timing unit. A number of pulsars are monitored at 18 cm and 13 cm wavelength, particularly for detecting glitches - sudden changes in the spin rate. Source: HartRAO

  • Jets from a black hole
    The radio telescope at Hartbeesthoek regularly operates as part of arrays of radio telescopes around the Earth and in space. When operating in this way, data are recorded simultaneously from each object at the same time at each telescope. The data streams from the telescopes are correlated later by computer. The interference pattern observed between the signals recorded at each pair of telescopes allows the brightness distribution of the radio source to be reconstructed and an image of it created. Source: HartRAO