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Stars at SciFest
Christina Scott
If astronomy is your thing, here are just some of the starry highlights you
could expect at Africa's largest science festival this year
. Astronomer Case Rijsdijk will be running the daily Science Oympics as well
as giving talks at the 10th Sasol SciFest from March 22 to 28. On Saturday,
March 25 he will reopen the issue of "When is a planet a planet?"
while on
Tuesday, March 28 he will be looking at some of the more recent astronomical
discoveries in his talk "What's new in the universe?".
- In keeping with South Africa's ideal position and climate for viewing the
origins of the universe, popular astronomer Eric Wilcots from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA will return to the SciFest on March 23 to
speak on "Seasoning the Universe with a little bit of SALT" - SALT
being the
Southern African Large Telescope, the second biggest optical telescope in
the world - while Professor Wilcots will also be sharing some "Lessons From
Mars" in his more informal talkshop on Friday 24 March. Wilcots and his
colleagues from the USA will be running twice-daily workshops on "hands-on
astronomy," including a comet demonstration, for the duration of SciFest as
well as twice-daily "Build Your own Telescope" workshops so you can
marvel
at the skies without having to dig deep into your pocket!
- In addition, radio astronomer Justin Jonas, head of the physics and
electronics department at South Africa's Rhodes University, will be
discussing South Africa's audacious bid to host the world's largest
telescope. Costing around one billion Euros, the Square Kilometre Array will
require a receiving area of a million square metres. But South Africa is up
against tough competition, including Australia, China and Argentina. To find
out more, tune in to Jonas' talkshop at SciFest on Wednesday 22 March. After
all, he's a member of the bid steering committee. And if you miss his talk, an
exhibition on the telescope project, called "the dawn of the universe"
is available free in the art gallery of the Monument building which hosts many
of the SciFest activities, while elsewhere in the same building, the results of
the "Cosmic Art Challenge" reveals how young and creative South
Africans have interpreted humanity's urge to explore the stars.
- An igloo-shaped portable inflatable planetarium will be at SciFest every
day at the Albany History Museum. Brought by SAASTA (the South African
Agency for Science and Technology Advancement), this nifty contraption folds up
into three suitcase-sized containers when not introducing people to the wonders
of the African sky.
- Also at the Albany History Museum, the team from the University of Cape
Town will be heading "Back To The Moon" in fifteen different
workshops. The workshops are inspired by recent announcements by the USA's
National
Aeronautics and Space Administration - better known as NASA - that they will run
a return mission to the moon within the next decade. Participants can form a
crater or construct a telescope, test the laws of motions devised by British
scientist Isaac Newton 300 years ago by making a Moon Buggy, or explore the
movements of the moon.
- The second biggest optical telescope in the world is in Africa. The
Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) opened in the remote Northern Cape
province of South Africa just a few months ago. Could you work there one day?
Find out in 28 SciFest workshops being run at the Albany Science Museum by the
South African Astronomical Observatory. Make your own binoculars, your own
telescope, your own comets, or create a sunometer so you can explain the
movement of the Sun across the sky or a simple luxometer to measure changing
light intensity as the angle of the Sun alters on our planet. Navigate your way
through the solar system in a fun board game. In another workshop, build a
spectroscope and split light!
More information:
 *For more
information on Sasol SciFest, phone 27 (0)46 603 1152 or email info@scifest.org.za
or check out the website: www.scifest.org.za
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