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 Kechil Kirkham

438 Episodes

160 – 180

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

Looking up - 10 Dec

How do astronomers make sense of vast amounts of data? There's too much from the new large instruments to represent on a piece of paper. Here to tell us about new methods is Professor Tom Jarrett at the Visualisation Lab at the University of Cape Town.

10 Dec 2021 5 min

Looking up - 03 Dec

A round-up of what's in the night sky plus news of the partial solar eclipse on Saturday morning.

3 Dec 2021 5 min

Looking up - 26 Nov

Invisibility: could it be made a reality? Well not unless you want to be turned into a gas and cooled down to absolute zero. But recent experiments have inched towards this, and could solve problems of information leakage in quantum computers

26 Nov 2021 4 min

Looking up - 19 Nov

Who was Vera C Rubin and why does she have a major telescope named after her? Here to tell us is the author of a recent biography of this important astronomer, Jacqueline Mitton. She herself is an astronomer from Cambridge, UK and her book is available from loot and is…

19 Nov 2021 4 min

Looking up - 12 Nov

One of the delights of living in this part of the world is the Karoo night skies. Enjoy them at their best by visiting the Leeuwenboschfontein Observatory and you can find details of where it is and when the observatory is open to the public on https://www.leeuwenboschfontein.co.za/pages/lbf-astronomical-observatory/

12 Nov 2021 4 min

Looking up - 05 Nov

Tourists have been getting in the way of a Mars simulation project. Why would they do that?

5 Nov 2021 4 min

Looking up - 29 Oct

The Sky Guide Africa South 2022 is now available at bookshops. Published by Struik Nature it is a terrific little book for anyone wishing to know what's up. It's conference season, but many of the usual conference goers are staying at home, and it's not just because of covid. Sending…

29 Oct 2021 5 min

Looking up - 15 Oct

The European and Japanese space agencies have sent craft Bepicolombo to investigate Mercury, and after 3 years it's arrived. Kechil describes something of this interesting mission. Also, fun in space! Star Trek's Captain Kirk has finally actually gone into space, plus the Russians are making a film aboard the International…

15 Oct 2021 4 min

Looking up - 08 Oct

NASA is to soon launch a new mission called Lucy to examine the Trojan asteroids which circle around Jupiter. It's a 12-year mission, and will find out about the formation of the outer planets, amongst other things we don't know about yet.

8 Oct 2021 4 min

Looking up - 01 Oct

Dr Sudanshu Barway, formerly of the South African Astronomical Observatory and now at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, talks about an extraordinary observation of 3 merging galaxies each with supermassive black holes. These will eventually collide, but thankfully not for a very long time.

1 Oct 2021 4 min

Looking up - 24 Sept

A new gravitational wave detector has observed a couple of wobbles. Is this some new exotic phenomenon in deep space or is it something going on in the instrument? We don't know. Even if we could discount discrepancies inside the detector we still wouldn't know for sure! Mysteries abound.

24 Sep 2021 4 min

Looking up - 17 Sept

What is SpaceX up to now? Well at this moment a crew of 4 is hurtling around planet Earth to raise money for a children's hospital, among other things. And they are all wearing SpaceX spacesuits. I want one!

17 Sep 2021 4 min