The Cosmic Savannah The Cosmic Savannah

Join us this week as we explore the 'Intimate Cosmology' of the indigenous people of South Africa, and the importance of preserving these stories for future generations. Check out the full show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for more info, pictures, related links and the full transcript.

This week's episode sees us celebrate SAAO's 200th anniversary, Dan premiering a full-length planetarium show, and the inspiring work being done by The Travelling Telescope in Kenya. Check out the full show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for more info, pictures, related links and the full transcript.

Welcome to Season 3 of The Cosmic Savannah! This week we get up to speed with all the activities over the break, hear from Assoc Prof Vanessa McBride joins about the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) and her role as Head of Research at the SAAO, and her own research in the field of compact binary stars. We also discuss the objectives of the OAD, acknowledging South Africa's difficult past, in striving for an equal and inclusive future for all, in astronomy and beyond.

Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for more info, pictures, links, and the transcript of this episode.

In this mini episode, we chat to Andrew “Andy” Firth, a Masters students at the South African Astronomical Observatory and the University of Cape Town. Andrew tries to detect the faint signals of hydrogen gas in distant galaxies. He is creating an algorithm for stacking data cubes of these galaxies. This clever new technique will be used alongside high-quality MeerKAT radio telescope data. Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for more info, pictures, links and the transcript of this episode.

This week's mini episode features PhD candidate Sambatriniaina Rajohnson, of the University of Cape Town's Astronomy department. She explains part of her work trying to advance our understanding of the large scale structure of the universe. Utilising the radio telescope MeerKAT, she plans on observing these structures in a region known as the Vela supercluster. This all part of her contribution to the Galactic Plane Survey (GPS). She describes some of the challenges she faces in studying the region of space hidden by the Milky Way - the formidable Zone of Avoidance.

In this week’s mini-episode, we chat with Liantsoa Finaritra Randrianjanahary who is a PhD candidate at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Liantsoa works in the field of cosmology which means he is researching the whole universe as one entity rather than focusing on the individual contents of the universe such as stars and galaxies. We discuss his specific interest in the evolution of the universe and how he can determine some of the hidden secrets of the universe. Liantsoa’s work also involves the use of hydrogen measurements and even the density of the mysterious quantity known as dark matter.