Report on the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) 2012 conference - the re-emergence of astronomy in Africa - a transdisciplinary interface of knowledge systems

Abstract

For today's scientists, astronomy provides the opportunity to look back in time and study the origins of our universe through modern technology. To do so, the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project was recently allocated to be hosted by South Africa. South Africa will build a full dish array and a dense aperture array in the Northern Cape Province on a site of 12 million hectares where the world class Meerkat-telescope is already being constructed (seven dishes are already completed). The sparse aperture array (low frequency array) will be built in Australia.