Africa has amazing potential due to natural (such as dark sky) and human resources for scientific research in astronomy and space science. At the same time, the continent is still facing many difficulties, and its countries are now recognising the importance of astronomy, space science and satellite technologies for improving some of their principal socio-economic challenges. The development of astronomy in Africa (including Ethiopia) has grown significantly over the past few years, and never before it was more possible to use astronomy for education, outreach, and development as it is now. However, much still remains to be done. This paper will summarise the recent developments in astronomy research and education in Africa and Ethiopia and will focus on how working together on the development of science and education can we fight poverty in the long term and increase our possibilities of attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in future for benefit of all.
The development of astronomy and space science in Africa has grown significantly over the past few years. These advancements make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals more achievable, and open up the possibility of new beneficial collaborations.
Astronomy plays a major role in the scientific landscape of Namibia and Southern Africa. Considerable progress has been achieved scientifically as well as in terms of human capacity development in the field. In all wavelength regimes accessible with ground-based instruments, the largest of those instruments are situated in Southern Africa: MeerKAT, the Southern African Large Telescope, and the High Energy Stereoscopic System. Because of the excellent observing conditions from Namibian soil, further large-scale projects such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array considered sites in Namibia and the A…
From Timbuktu to SKA: Who owns the Astronomy knowledge Africa produces?
North-West University（西北大学）；Centre for Higher Education Professional Development (CHEPD)（高等教育专业发展中心）；The Education and Human Rights in Diversity Research Unit (Edu-HRight)（教育与人权多样性研究单元）；Centre for Space Research（空间研究中心）；National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS)（理论与计算科学国家研究所）
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) offers unrivalled resolution in studies of celestial radio sources. The subjects of interest of the IAU Symposium No. 356, the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) of all types, constitute the major observing sample of modern VLBI networks. At present, the largest in the world in terms of the number of telescopes and geographical coverage is the European VLBI Network (EVN), which operates under the open sky policy via peer-reviewed observing proposals. Recent EVN observations cover a broad range of science themes from high-sensitivity monitoring of structural c…
莫桑比克已被提议作为南部非洲未来平方公里阵列台站之一的东道国。然而，莫桑比克没有大学天文学系，直到最近才有兴趣发展一个。南非一直在资助硕士和博士级别的学生以及研究人员。此外，拥有物理学学位的莫桑比克人获得了理学硕士学位。随着国际天文学年的到来，这些学生强烈要求在莫桑比克建立一个成功的天文学系。在2008年世界空间周期间发起的纪念活动非常成功，莫桑比克将被用来激励缺乏资金但仍在努力参加国际天文学年的类似非洲国家。资源和资金有限，但有强烈的意愿将这一势头延续到2009年，并以此影响政府将天文学纳入其国家课程和大学一级。莫桑比克国际天文学年的座右铭是“Descobre o teu Universo”。
The International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) is an astronomy education outreach event with more than 50 years of history and over 1,700 unique participants from 81 nationalities. The International Workshop for Astronomy e.V. (IWA) is the non-profit organization behind the IAYC, established in 1979 and based in Germany. The IAYC's unprecedented longevity in a rapidly globalizing world has meant that financial inequities decreases the reach of the camp to people from the Global South compared to Global North countries. Though nationalities represented per camp has increased steadily since it…
Radio astronomy and Space Infrastructures in the Azores have a great scientific and industrial interest because they benefit from a unique geographical location in the middle of the North Atlantic allowing a vast improvement in the sky coverage. This fact obviously has a very high added value for: i) the establishment of space tracking and communications networks for the emergent global small satellite fleets ii) it is invaluable to connect the radio astronomy infrastructure networks in Africa, Europe and America continents using Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques, iii) it al…
Pictorial and Documentary Guide for Research, Teaching, and Education through Astronomy, Physics, and Mathematics Pursued under the Umbrella of the United Nations (1974-2024)
After a decade of design and construction, South Africa's SKA-MID precursor MeerKAT has begun its science operations. To make full use of the widefield capability of the array, it is imperative that we have an accurate model of the primary beam of its antennas. We have taken available L-band full-polarization 'astro-holographic' observations of three antennas and a generic electromagnetic simulation and created sparse representations of the beams using principal components and Zernike polynomials. The spectral behaviour of the spatial coefficients has been modelled using discrete cosine transf…
