News

NSTF “Science Oscars” Will Recognise SA’s Finest – And The UWC Nominees Are…

The National Science and Technology Forum awards were established decades ago to recognise outstanding contributions to science. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is once again playing its part, with three top UWC scientists being nominated for the 2020/2021 NSTF-South32 Awards. “We are living in interesting and unprecedented times,” said Professor Michael-Davies-Coleman, Dean of UWC’s Faculty …

Read more

New UWC paper

Prof Mario Santos is part of a collaboration that published the following paper: Effects of model incompleteness on the drift-scan calibration of radio telescopes Precision calibration of the instruments poses challenges to experiments probing the redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization (z~30-6). Both single antenna and …

Read more

South African MeerKAT discovery of two Giant Radio Galaxies

We are thrilled to promote the new discovery led by Dr Jacinta Delhaize, a Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town, Dr Matthew Prescott, a Research Fellow at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and Dr Ian Heywood, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford. Together with UWC professors Lerothodi Leeuw, Russ …

Read more

Star Formation — the Tai Chi between Gravity, Turbulence and Magnetic Fields (Webinar, Friday 11th September @ 11:30)

Li Hua-bai (Chinese University of Hong Kong) Since 1980’s, astronomers realized that gravity, turbulence and magnetic fields may all take part in the process of star formation. But how exactly these three forces interact with each other and result in the observed, e.g., star formation rate, efficiency, and stellar mass distribution remains as one of …

Read more

RADIOSKY2020 Italy-South Africa Research Programme (ISARP) Virtual Workshop (18 June 2020)

The University of the Western Cape (UWC)/Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA), Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF-IRA), and the Italian Embassy hosted the RADIOSKY2020 Workshop virtually on 18 June 2020. Find here a summary about the event https://www.idia.ac.za/radiosky2020-italy-south-africa-research-programme-isarp-virtual-workshop and here most presentations https://www.idia.ac.za/radiosky-2020-workshop/ Image Credit: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, generated by …

Read more

Importance of WN stars on the ionisation and chemical evolution of galaxies (Webinar, Friday 22nd May @ 11:30)

Arpita Roy (Australian National University) Massive stars are primary sources of chemical yields and mechanical and ionization luminosity budgets. Therefore, understanding massive stars’ evolution is crucial to have a complete understanding of the chemical and ionization evolution of galaxies. Moreover, with the advent of instruments like MUSE, JWST (upcoming), HST, etc., we have (/are going …

Read more

UWC Astro sponsors Molo Mhlaba visit to SAAO

Girls from Grades 1 & 2 from the Molo Mhlaba School (www.molomhlaba.org) in Khayelitsha visited the South African Astronomical Observatory today to celebrate International Women’s Day. The trip was made possible by the Astro UWC department, which covered the costs of the visit. The school, in partnership with Astro UWC and the Office of Astronomy …

Read more

Announcement of NRF One Call for Proposals 2020/2021

The Call includes the following funding categories: 1)     Concept Notes 2)     Customised Programmes 3)     Infrastructure 4)     Institutional Grants 5)     Postdoctoral Grants 6)     Research Grants: General 7)     Research Grants: International 8)     Research Grants: Thuthuka 9)     Research Grants: Without Student Support  10)  Travel, Training and Conference Grants 11)  Travel, Training and Conference Grants: Scholarship- and Fellowship-holders  Applications must be submitted electronically on the NRF Online Submission System at https://nrfsubmission.nrf.ac.za. …

Read more