Looking Up

Five minutes at the end of each week explores the big and the small questions in astronomy, cosmology, and space science. Hosted by Kechil Kirkham, no subject is too big or too small, and experts are regularly brought on board to illuminate and excite. Cape Town is the place to be for astronomy, with some of the largest telescopes in the world housed or being built not too far away. Looking Up takes advantage of the shoals of scientists and engineers working on the planet’s most advanced astronomy projects, who live and work right here in the Mother City. Kechil has recently acquired an MPhil in Space Studies at the University of Cape Town, and works in South Africa’s space industry on the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope.
Weekly English South Africa Places & Travel
438 Episodes
140 – 160

Looking Up - 24 June 22

Rotating liquid mirrors of mercury - bet you've never heard of that! There is a new telescope in India with such a mirror being commissioned at the moment. Also some news of a hypergiant, dying star.
24 Jun 2022 4 min

Looking Up - 17 June 22

What's up with our space telescopes? The James Webb has been hit by a meteorite (not serious) and the European Space Agency's Gaia telescope has found some interesting things hanging out in our galaxy. One of them is the James Webb.
17 Jun 2022 5 min

Looking up - 10 June 22

We've heard of gravitational waves, which are being detected by laser interferometers in different parts of the world. But these are detecting high-frequency waves caused by dramatic events such as the collision of supermassive black holes. There is an experiment going on to show that the universe is bathed in…
10 Jun 2022 5 min

Looking up - 03 June 2022

What is Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage and what will it do for you? The answer is that this technique will enable astronomers to see further, better, when applying Very Large Baseline Interferometry to the optical realm. And if you're not sure how this impacts you - well it could be…
3 Jun 2022 4 min

Looking up - 27 May 2022

A second image has recently been taken around a black hole, and here Kechil interviews one of the researchers, Prof Roger Deane, Director of the Wits Centre for Astrophysics. He tells us why this is an especially important image, as it can be used to test Einstein's theories. This work…
27 May 2022 4 min

Looking up - 20 May 2022

What is the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group and what does it do? It's hard not to be flippant about this subject, but it is interesting how many aerial phenomena defy explanation.
20 May 2022 5 min

Looking up - 13 May 2022

Some listeners may have heard the term 'machine learning'. This is highly critical for modern astronomy, where computers take vast amounts of data from astronomical observations and sift through it to detect patterns or find anomalies. To put it in context for us is Dr Jasper Horrell who works at…
13 May 2022 4 min

Looking up - 06 May

Would you like to live on Mars? A recent report suggests that solar technology may be feasible for establishing a small colony.
6 May 2022 4 min

Looking up - 29 Apr

NASA has created a wonderful sonification (sound picture) of planets outside of our solar system. This comes with pretty visuals. It's lovely to listen to, and to get a feel for how many exoplanets we've detected and their characteristics.
29 Apr 2022 4 min

Looking up - 22 Apr

The Orion spacecraft will sit atop a rocket and will take humans to the Moon and beyond in the not-too-distant future. Hear all about it!
22 Apr 2022 5 min

Looking up - 15 Apr

NASA has created a wonderful sonification (sound picture) of planets outside of our solar system. This comes with pretty visuals. It's lovely to listen to, and to get a feel for how many exoplanets we've detected and their characteristics.
15 Apr 2022 5 min

Looking up - 08 Apr

Not every student who studies astronomy will go on to be an astronomer. In fact only a minority will do so. What do they do when they've completed a PhD or Masters? The EU-funded SKIES project is designed to help students navigate the world out there, and here are Michelle…
8 Apr 2022 5 min

Looking up - 01 Apr

It is true that I had lunch with the head of NASA (as in, sitting next to him in a small room with just 4 of us), and that he told me that the entire budget of NASA was one slice of pizza per US citizen in 2011. In fact…
1 Apr 2022 4 min

Looking up - 25 Mar

Dr Elias Aydi is a research associate at Michigan State University, and has been involved in research under Cape Town's Professor Shazrene Mohammed. Their research has simulated what happens when our star dies. It's quite wild. Thankfully this isn't going to happen for a long long time
25 Mar 2022 4 min

Looking up - 18 Mar

Astronomy Picture of the Day https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ has been at it again, inspiring us with extraordinary images from nature. A recent image shows us what we can see in what is known as 'the observable universe'. What are the limits of this universe, and what lies beyond?
18 Mar 2022 4 min

Looking up - 04 Mar

Super-massive black holes merging in a distant galaxy! Good thing we're nowhere near.
4 Mar 2022 5 min

Looking up - 25 Feb

Imagine if there were two Suns. This is the case for Kepler-16b which is an exoplanet detected using a relatively modest ground based telescope. There is a lot to learn about how planets were formed and looking at systems with more than one star may teach us something.
25 Feb 2022 4 min

Looking up - 18 Feb

Where does all the water come from? Recent research suggests that the Earth was born with it.
18 Feb 2022 4 min

Looking up - 11 Feb

Comets causing damage! There is historical evidence for a comet having wreaked havoc on an ancient North American culture. Also the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to look at the problems being caused by, predominantly the Starlink satellites.
11 Feb 2022 5 min
140 – 160