Major international telescope being built in South Africa by local artisans

An international radio telescope array project, led by the US National Science Foundation, is being built in South Africa’s radio astronomy reserve in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape province by local artisans, and has already started doing valuable science, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has reported. The project is designated Hera, an acronym for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionisation Array (Hera was the Queen of the gods in ancient Greek mythology, the wife and sister of Zeus). “Construction of the array is phased in such a way that, as antennas are completed, they are hooked into the telescope data correlation system,” explained original Hera project engineer Kathryn Rosie. “This enables observations and early science to be carried out while construction continues.”