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
360 – 380

Looking Up - 05 January 2018

Stars have a lifecycle just as living creatures do. They form in nebulae, they continue to shine for millennia, and then they turn into different entities depending on their size and composition. Dr Sally MacFarlane takes us through the basics.
4 Jan 2018 5 min

Looking Up - 30 December 2017

Where can you go to look at the stars? Kechil Kirkham and Sally MacFarlane talk about their favourite places and where the public can enjoy a spot of star gazing.
29 Dec 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 22 December 2017

Astrotourism - Dr Sally MacFarlane tells us what it is and why we should all get out and take a look at our gorgeous dark night skies.
22 Dec 2017 4 min

Looking Up - 15 December 2017

Did you know we have a national space agency? Do you know what it does? Hear it from the top as Kechil interviews its CEO, Dr Val Munsami.
15 Dec 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 08 December 2017

Get me outta here! Take me home! Many of us would benefit from a button to press which would take us instantly home in safety and comfort. This is especially so during this Christmas season. For terrestrials such a homing device doesn't exist, but for astronauts it is becoming a…
7 Dec 2017 4 min

Looking Up - December 01 2017

Lize van den Heever works on the radio astronomy project called MEERKAT, an important and completely South African component of the Square Kilometre Array. In itself it is a huge telescope, and is already producing new science. Find out more!
1 Dec 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 17 November 2017

What are satellites for as they silently whizz around planet Earth doing their business? All we can see of them is their tracks crossing the skies at night as the light from the Sun bounces off their casings and solar panels. Dewald Lloyd from Space Advisory Company gives us the…
17 Nov 2017 4 min

Looking Up - 03 November 2017

South Africa's space industry is active, and this year one of our satellites was launched from the International Space Station. Hear about the n-Sight programme and the n-Sight-1 satellite designed and built by Space Advisory Company here in Somerset West, now in orbit around a planet near you. Dr Francois…
3 Nov 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 27 October 2017

Telescopes Galore! Another telescope is being commissioned in Sutherland, and this one is highly unusual. Called Meerlicht, this is a robotic optical telescope which will observe the same patch of sky as MEERKAT, the new radio telescope being built in the Karoo. Where MEERKAT is the ears, Meerlicht is the…
27 Oct 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 20 October 2017

Animals in Space! What could be more attractive to social media than pussy cats in rocket ships! Listen to this brief history of animals in space, you'll be surprised at what we've sent up there.
20 Oct 2017 4 min

Looking Up - 13 October 2017

More about the wonderful new digital dome and planetarium. Prof Michelle Cluver tells us about how this new high-tech facility at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town will be used for many different kinds of research. Visualising massive data sets is at the core of much of modern research, and…
13 Oct 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 6 October 2017

The Cape Town planetarium at the Iziko Museum has had a major renovation. Gone is the projector that used to rise from beneath the floor, to be replaced by something far more spectacular and wide-ranging in its appeal and what it can do. Here to tell us about the renovations…
6 Oct 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 29 September 2017

Find out about gravitational waves and the latest news about their detection from one of the visiting scientists at LIGO, Kai Staats. The announcement was made this week of a fourth detection, so it's great timing to speak to someone in the know. The Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory has one…
29 Sep 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 22 September 2017

Ancient and modern astronomers detect nova burst, and local scientists piece together the fragments of a puzzle providing evidence for the lifecycle of stars. It's important to keep old records!
22 Sep 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 15 September 2017

Today marks the grand finale of the highly successful 20-year Cassini mission to Saturn, when the space probe enters the atmosphere to Saturn to end its days. To mark this occasion, Kechil recently interviewed South African Professor Michelle Doherty about Cassini's magnetometer, Saturn's moon Enceladus with its mighty plume of…
18 Sep 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 17 March 2017

Could Saturn's second moon harbour life? The Cassini spacecraft has detected that the ocean beneath Enceladus's icy crust is closer to the surface at the pole than previously thought, meaning that a future mission could probe this more directly and possibly find evidence for life forms.
17 Mar 2017 5 min

Looking Up - 9 March 2017

In a galaxy far, far, far away. Kechil talks to Prof. Russ Taylor, UCT professor of astrology about the evolution of distant galaxies.
9 Mar 2017 6 min

Looking Up - 3 March 2017

Find out about the local contribution to the amazing TRAPPIST-1 discovery. Rudi Kuhn, a SALT astronomer in Cape Town enthuses with Kechil about the view from the outer planet in this extraordinary solar system.
3 Mar 2017 5 min
360 – 380