Namibia to become a partner of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration

BY MATHIEU ISIDRO (SKAO)

SKA African partner country Namibia is set to host the Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT), a 15m radio telescope that will form part of the international Event Horizon Telescope.

Located on the Gamsberg mountain, the AMT will be the first radio telescope in Africa sensitive to millimetre wavelengths.

Its main goal is to expand the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) – an international network of radio telescopes that delivered the first ever image of a black hole – by adding a new baseline on the African continent to improve the network’s resolution. The AMT will also work as a stand-alone telescope, complementing observations from other radio, optical and gamma ray telescopes such as the High Energy Stereoscopic System in Namibia, the 10m South African Large Telescope (SALT) and the South African SKA precursor telescope MeerKAT.

The project is supported by a 10-year funding commitment from Radboud University in the Netherlands in partnership with the University of Namibia (UNAM) and other international partners, with 80% of the observing time allocated to Namibia.

Like MeerKAT and the SKA project, the AMT will support human capital development in the country. UNAM ViceChancellor, Prof. Kenneth Matengu, remarked: “The AMT will function as a lighthouse project for the next generation of Namibian engineers and scientists in general.”

Namibia’s Gamsberg mountain where the African Millimetre Telescope will be located

Credit: Olga Ernst