In this week's episode, Jacinta and Dan take a step back to review the past year of the Cosmic Savannah podcast. We chat about some of the highlights of the past year in astronomy and also some of our favourite episodes of the season. The post Episode 58: Season 4 in Review appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this episode we are joined by Dr Omima Osman who studies the lifecycles of cosmic dust. Omima explains how she is using computer simulations to understand how dust is created, grows and is destroyed in interstellar space. The post Episode 57: From dust to dust appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy! We are joined by Dr Iniyan Natarajan who is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Witwatersrand and who was part of the team of over 300 astronomers who made this possible. The post Episode 56: Our supermassive black hole appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

An oldie but a goodie - re-run of Episode 11. Jacinta takes us on a tour of her homeland, into the Australian bush, and chats about pathfinders, precursor telescopes and exciting collaborations between South Africa and Australia in the lead up to the Square Kilometre Array! The post Episode 55: A Trip Down Under (Re-run) appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this week's episode we are joined by fours members of the board of the recently established African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA). AfNWA is an initiative that aims to connect women working in astronomy and related fields in Africa. AfNWA aims to guarantee the future participation of girls and women at all levels in astronomy and science developments in Africa. The post Episode 54: The African Network of Women in Astronomy appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

A powerful, naturally occurring “space laser”, called a megamaser, has been discovered with South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope in a galaxy nearly five billion light-years away. We speak with the lead researcher Dr. Marcin Glowacki and team-lead Associate Professor Sarah Blyth. The post Episode 53: Space lasers! appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In this week’s episode, we take a step back from astronomy and focus on mental health in academia and beyond. We are joined by Dr Jack Radcliffe, an astronomer from the University of Pretoria who speaks to us about his work on galaxy evolution, as well his recent efforts to speak out about mental health challenges facing academics in particular. The post Episode 52: Head Space appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

We are joined by Prof Travis Rector, co-founder of Astronomers for Planet Earth, who chats about why and how astronomers can teach climate change! The post Episode 51: No Planet B appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

In celebration of our 50th Episode, we are joined by a Titan of Astronomy, Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who speaks with us about his illustrious career and his vision for the future of astronomy in Africa The post Episode 50: Titans of Astronomy appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

This episode is in celebration of the IAU Women and Girls in Astronomy Month in February. We speak with Dr Elizabeth Naluminsa who is one of the first Ugandan women to obtain her PhD in astronomy is now working with instrumentation on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The post Episode 49: SALT Spectroscopy appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

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.

with Dr Moses Mogotsi and Dr Nicolas Erasmus. 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...

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 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!

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...

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. Hydrogen is one of the most common elements in the Universe and this gas is one of the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. Yet the radio signal released by hydrogen gas is very faint, and so is notoriously difficult to detect. Tariq and Shilpa, who are colleagues, are both trying to pry...

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. Check out the full show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for more info, links, pics and the full transcript.

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! Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for pics, links, and the full transcript.

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! For more info, pics, links and the transcript, check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com.

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. Check out the full show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for pics, links and the transcript.

We are joined by Dr Michelle Lochner who is a senior lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. Michelle is developing new machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyse the massive astronomical datasets of next- generation telescopes. Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for pics, links and the full transcript.

Welcome to Season Four! We start with a bang and speak with the Director General of the Square Kilometre Array Telescope, Prof Phil Diamond! Phil tells us how it feels to finally have the green light for construction of this giant telescope, after nearly 30 years of preparation. Head to the show notes at thecosmicsavannah.com for pics, links and the full transcript.

Episode 36 marks the second anniversary of The Cosmic Savannah. We take the opportunity to reflect on what has been a very different year, but not without some great fun and highlights. Jacinta and Dan talk through some of their favourite moments from the past year.

This week we feature some rising stars in African Astronomy! We're joined by high school learners Indiphile Madletyana and Thabo Maliea who both show great promise as aspiring astronomers, as well as Masters students Sumari Hattingh and Reikantseone Diretse who discuss studies of galaxy clusters using the Hubble Space Telescope. Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for related links, pics, info and the full transcript.

This episode we hear from a familiar voice! SALT Astronomer Dr Moses Mogotsi was our first ever guest on The Cosmic Savannah. He joins us again to explain what it's like to observe in the time of COVID and to tell us more about his research on galaxies. We learn about how observing galaxies in different wavelengths and with different telescopes can add to our overall understanding of how galaxies evolve. Check out the show notes at www.thecosmicsavannah.com for related links, pics, info and...