Pretoria - More than 43 000 hours of observing time have been allocated to radio astronomers from Africa and around the world to do research on South Africa's MeerKAT telescope.
MeerKAT is South Africa's precursor telescope to the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) and will consist of 64 dishes, each 13.5m in diameter.
It will be built in the radio astronomy reserve near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape over the next five years. An engineering test bed of seven dishes (KAT-7) is already complete.
Following an October 2009 invitation to the world's radio astronomers to apply for telescope time to perform large survey projects, 21 proposals, involving more than 500 astronomers from around the world (59 from Africa), were received.
A Time Allocation Committee made up of local and international experts rated the proposals on the basis of scientific merit, technical and operational feasibility, the extent to which MeerKAT has a unique role for the proposed observations or is an essential component in a larger campaign, and the resources each group was prepared to bring to the project.
Nearly 8 000 hours of observing time were allocated to a proposal to test Einstein's theory of gravity and investigate the physics of enigmatic neutron stars (radio pulsar timing survey), while 5 000 hours were dedicated jointly to two proposals to survey the distant universe with the MeerKAT (the ultra-deep survey of neutral hydrogen gas in the early universe).
These science objectives happen to be the prime science drivers for the first phase of the SKA telescope itself, confirming MeerKAT's designation as an SKA precursor instrument.
The teams who have submitted the successful proposals will be invited to work with the MeerKAT team throughout the design phase of the telescope, and to become involved in the project's human capacity building programme.
