Volume II - The Northern Cape Provincial Spatial Development ...

Northern Cape PSDF
Volume 2
F.1.6.1 SOUTHERN AFRICAN LARGE TELESCOPE (SALT)
Office of the Premier &
Department of Rural Development & Land Reform
134
December 2011
Sutherland is home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) which has a hexagonal mirror
array that measures 11m across. This is the largest facility of its type in the southern hemisphere
and one of the top 10 facilities in the world. SALT is an international collaboration that includes
scientists and academics in Germany, India, Poland, the UK and the USA. It allows astronomers to
examine the scale and age of the universe, the life and death of stars and the earliest galaxies.
The site was established in the early 1970s at an altitude of 1 759m and the night skies are among
the world’s clearest and darkest. Furthermore, the weather conditions are good and stable which
enhances its viewing opportunities (Northern Cape Business 2011/2012). The SALT facility is
operated under contract to the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).
According to the LED Strategy, this technological breakthrough can produce significant new
tourism opportunities in the Namaqua district and the province as a whole. These opportunities
include star‐gazing tours, research opportunities, etc. Furthermore, the value of SALT to the
disciplines of astronomy and astrophysics is immense and could ensure a constant stream of
international scientists, visitors, and travellers.
F.1.6.2 SQUARE KILOMETRE ARRAY (SKA)
Currently, South Africa is bidding against Australia to host a R14.5 billion radio telescope on a huge
site near Carnarvon in the Pixely ka Seme District. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will
be world’s most sophisticated telescope and the decision about whether this new telescope will
be located in the Northern Cape is to be taken in 2012. The size and scope of the project means
that winning the bid will have significant economic implications for the province. The speed of the
computers that will operate at SKA will be extremely fast – SKA is expected to collect more data in
one week than humankind has collected in its entire history, and mankind will have its first clear
pictures of what the universe looked like 13.7 billion years ago (Northern Cape Business
2011/2012).
In 2007, the Karoo Radio Astronomy Reserve was established under the Astronomy Geographic
Act 21 of 2007. This world‐leading piece of South African legislation designed to preserve the
scientific integrity of the reserve. The Act ensures the preservation and protection of areas within
South Africa that are uniquely suited to ground‐based astronomy. An area of 12.5 million hectares
around the proposed core of 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 (refer to Map F.2 below).
The intention is to locate the SKA core near Carnarvon with outlying stations in Botswana, Ghana,
Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. Added together, the combined
collecting area of these antennas will be roughly one square kilometre. The antennas would be
connected via a super‐fast data communications network to an extremely large and powerful
computer in the Northern Cape, and the telescope would be controlled and operated remotely
from Cape Town, where the operations and science centre would be located. The SKA will be one
of the largest scientific research facilities in the world and, if awarded to South Africa, would
Dennis Moss Partnership