We're joined by SAAO Astronomer Dr Nic Erasmus who has been responsible for the newest telescope on the SAAO site (And he's just had a comet named after him!)

Sutherland has become the latest observatory to host an asteroid tracking system funded by NASA!

The post Episode 48: ATLAS – Holding up the Heavens! appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

This is a re-run of the very first episode of The Cosmic Savannah! We're re-running it in preparation for our next episode where we'll be speaking again with Nic for some exciting updates. In Episode 1, we introduce ourselves and our vision for the podcast. SALT Astronomer Dr Moses Mogotsi then describes what it's like to use the biggest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere (from 00:12m). Lastly, Dr Nicolas Erasmus tells us about the hunt for near-earth asteroids (from 00:23m) using the ATLAS network. Nic explains how another ATLAS telescope is being installed in South Africa in order to achieve continuous coverage of the Southern night sky.

The post Episode 47: SALT and Near-Earth Asteroids (re-run) appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Kenda Knowles. Kenda has just released a beautiful new dataset called the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS). The survey contains images of the radio emission from 115 clusters of galaxies!

The post Episode 46: A crash of clusters appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope will finally launch into space on December 18 2021! In this episode we are joined by Prof Christy Tremonti who is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is an observational astronomer who works on galaxy evolution and stellar feedback processes. Christy speaks with us about her work, the JWST and the exciting future that awaits!

The post Episode 45: The James Webb Space Telescope appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

We are joined by two experts in stellar astronomy, Priscilla Muheki from Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda and Distinguished Professor Hakeem Oluseyi from the Florida Institute of Technology. Priscilla talks about her PhD research in Uganda studying violent outbursts, known as coronal mass ejections, from certain types of stars. Hakeem then goes on the explain these coronal mass ejections and the violent magnetic fields associated with them, and what effect they may have on both our technology and our entire planet!

The post Episode 44: Stars behaving badly! (Re-run) appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Tariq Blecher and Shilpa Ranchod who talk to us about the clever ways they are trying to capture the elusive signals of hydrogen gas in the distant Universe.

The post Episode 43: The search for hidden hydrogen appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

We are joined by Dr Eugene Grosch who is a geologist and petrologist at Rhodes University in South Africa to discuss how planets create the building blocks for life!

The post Episode 42: Rockin’ all over the World appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

We are joined by Dr Rob Yates, from the University of Surrey, who chats with us about how to recreate the formation of galaxies inside a supercomputer!

The post Episode 41: How to Train Your Galaxy appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

This episode we speak with Dr Marisa Geyer. She is a pulsar astronomer and Commissioning Scientist at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) in Cape Town, South Africa. MeerKAT telescope. She also explains her research on pulsars and mysterious Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). We don't yet know what causes FRBs, but Marisa reveals some enticing clues!

The post Episode 40: The mystery of the Fast Radio Burst appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this week's episode, we are joined by Dr Miriam Nyamai who studies thermonuclear eruptions on the surface of white dwarf stars! Miriam explains how these "novae" eruptions occur and what we can learn from them. She also describes her role as a postdoctoral researcher hunting for transient events in the sky using radio telescopes such as MeerKAT.

The post Episode 39: Erupting novae appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.