Looking Up - 10 May 23 Space-X's Starlink programme

Ranpal Gil works on the engineering side of a new massive survey telescope, the Vera C Rubin, in Chile. She talked to Kechil about this extraordinary telescope when she was here at the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly in Cape Town, early August.

Liquid water has been found on Mars, but not where we'd want it. It's 10-20kms underground, at least at the place where the Mars Insight lander was testing. Interesting though, and baby steps in terms of any colonisation programme.

Professor Phil Charles was the director of the Southern African Astronomical Observatory here in Cape Town and retired many years ago. What has he been up to since? Kechil catches up with him at the IAU's General Assembly on August 13th.

What is dark matter and what is dark energy? Do they exist? Well, we've sent up a spacecraft which has left a space telescope, Euclid, to map billions of galaxies and detect their movement. To tell us more about this mysterious and fascinating endeavor is Sandor Kruk of the European…

It's the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly happening now in Cape Town from 6-15th August. This is great news for Africa, as it's the first time the annual General Assembly has taken place in this continent. More information about public events and booking can be found here: https://astronomy2024.org/public/ The number…