Fine Music Radio Looking Up

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
430 Episodes
140 – 160

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

Looking up - 04 Feb

9,200 years ago a massive solar storm hit Earth, as detected in ice cores. This happened during a period of solar quiescence, which is thought to be unusual. Why is this important? Because a solar storm of the magnitude of that ancient storm would knock out satellites, which means no…
4 Feb 2022 4 min

Looking up - 28 Jan

Where are the aliens? With the help of Fermi's Paradox Kechil lists the reasons.
28 Jan 2022 5 min

Looking up - 22 Jan

Have scientists found evidence of Life On Mars? Kechil walks through the latest finding, and hypotheses about carbon-rich samples found by Curiosity rover.
22 Jan 2022 4 min

Looking up - 14 Jan

Willie Koorts, a technician at the South African Astronomical Observatory, talks about the construction of the ATLAS dome and telescope, and how they had to mak 'n plan.
14 Jan 2022 4 min

Looking up - 07 Jan

A new telescope is being commissioned in Sutherland, which is part of the ATLAS project. This is a worldwide survey looking out for Near Earth Objects, or asteroids, which could threaten Earth. A recent move, Don't Look Up, treats this subject with dark humour.
7 Jan 2022 4 min

Looking up - 31 Dec

Finally the James Webb Space Telescope has launched into space, on Christmas Day itself, and is now on its way to its destination. Find out about what it's going to do when it gets there, and why this is a very important and exciting space mission.
31 Dec 2021 5 min

Looking up - 24 Dec

The James Webb Space Telescope should have launched a couple of hours ago. Let's hope so. It's an extraordinary instrument and here Kechil describes some of its finer points.
24 Dec 2021 5 min

Looking up - 17 Dec

The Andromeda Galaxy was first seen through a telescope 500 years ago. It is famous for not only being the nearest full-on galaxy to our own, but because it was used to determine the distance between us. This marked it out not as a cloud, as was thought at the…
17 Dec 2021 5 min
140 – 160