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
438 Episodes
200 – 220

Looking up - 23 Apr 21

This last week Table Mountain went up in flames, causing terrible damage, displacing people and destroying the lives of countless creatures and plants. But what is fire and how is terrestrial fire different to what we see in our Sun? Here to talk us through the physics (gently) is Dr…
23 Apr 2021 5 min

Looking up - 16 Apr 21

It's 60 years since Yuri Gagarin orbited planet Earth, and in that time we have learnt how to examine the atmospheres around exoplanets orbiting distant stars. What about our closest star and the planets around that? And what will the next 60 years of space exploration bring?
16 Apr 2021 5 min

Looking up - 09 Apr 21

The Mars rover Perseverance is sending back astonishing high resolution images from the surface, and soon its helicopter will be launched. Kechil walks us through the journey the signals have to take to reach NASA
9 Apr 2021 5 min

Looking up - 02 Apr 21

It's a long time since we visited Uranus and Neptune: the 80's in fact. Scientists are proposing launching a mission to these planets in 2030. Not only that, but they are proposing that a mission to the ice giants could be used to measure gravitational waves.
2 Apr 2021 5 min

Looking up - 26 Mar 21

Keith Gottscalk has a lifelong passion for space flight and some FMR listeners may have caught him speaking at a UCT Summer School on South Africa's history in space. Recently he has published a poetry book called 'Cosmonauts do it in heaven' and talks to Kechil about it. It is…
26 Mar 2021 4 min

Looking up - 19 Mar 21

Zodiacal light: what is it? Have you seen it? What has Mars got to do with it? Latest research from the Juno mission suggests that most of this dust originates from the Red Planet.
19 Mar 2021 5 min

Looking up - 12 Mar 21

PhD student Erik Osinga in Leiden in The Netherlands tells us about his citizen science project Lofar Galaxy Zoo. You too can participate and help the astronomers to identify galaxies in outer space. The link to the project is: http://lofargalaxyzoo.nl/ There is also a tutorial video that helps people get…
12 Mar 2021 5 min

Looking up - 19 Feb 21

February is the month of Mars this year with not one, not two, but three missions arriving at the Red Planet. Two represent the first interplanetary missions for the United Arab Emirates and China, the third being the US NASA Perseverance rover.
19 Feb 2021 4 min

Looking up - 12 Feb 21

The latest from outer space: unusual star systems and a Japanese sample-return mission to an asteroid.
12 Feb 2021 4 min

Looking up - 05 Feb 21

Dragonfly Aerospace is a new space technology company based in Stellenbosch. The CEO, Bryan Dean, tells Kechil all about it.
5 Feb 2021 5 min

Looking up - 29 Jan 21

Research Fellow Dr Mpati Ramatsoku of Rhodes University tells Kechil about mysterious strings around distant galaxies which only powerful radio telescopes can see. In fact, only the local MeerKAT radio telescope has detected them. These connect massive 'lobes' emanating from one particular galaxy. Are there more of these? Does every…
29 Jan 2021 4 min

Looking up - 22 Jan 21

Super-massive enormous galaxies - they exist out there with super massive black holes at their centres spewing out great long jets of plasma and who knows what. This is the latest finding from our local MeerKAT telescope, the biggest telescope in the world in the Northern Cape. Dr Jacinta Delhaize…
22 Jan 2021 5 min

Looking up - 08 Jan 21

We start off the year with a mystery. What are ORCs? Odd Radio Circles a million light years across and far, far away. Now with more powerful telescopes coming online like MeerKAT in South Africa and ASKAP in Australia we are finding new things in the cosmos. Here to tell…
8 Jan 2021 5 min

Looking up - 01 Jan 21

Here's a round-up of what's going on in space in 2021 - looks set to be a very busy year. For astronomy and scientific discoveries - who knows?
3 Jan 2021 5 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 2020 5 min

Looking up - 25 Dec 20

Just what was the Star of Bethlehem? Was it a star at all? To talk through the possibilities Kechil chats to Christian Hettlage of the South African Astronomical Observatory.
25 Dec 2020 6 min

Looking up - 18 Dec 20

What is a syzygy and why isn't it a good word for Scrabble? There is a 'great conjunction' happening on 21 December. This is the first time such a close conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter has happened since the 13th century.
18 Dec 2020 4 min

Looking up - 11 Dec 20

Simon Ratcliffe has been at the beating heart of the Square Kilometre Array project since the outset - and has in the last 15 years helped to build the biggest telescope in the world. Listen to his highlights and how we beat the Australians with the power of Min. Naledi…
11 Dec 2020 5 min
200 – 220