The Africa Millimetre Project

Namibia’s entrance into space

The sky above Namibia is so clear that you can see deep into our galaxy with the naked eye. With the Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT), to be mounted in the Gamsberg area, the country will enrich its astronomic research and value.

The idea was born in The Netherlands by professor Heino Falcke of Radboud University in Nijmegen. He works on the virtual telescope (referred to as the Event Horizon Telescope or EHT) with the size of the earth that imaged black holes for the very first time. Already in 2016 he and his Dutch colleagues realised that a telescope in the Southern Africa region is much needed for improving these images.

ENTRANCE INTO SPACE

"We are more and more together in the world, we have the same questions. This telescope is an opportunity for people to link up”, says Hartmut Ruppel. He is a lawyer and former Namibian Politician in the SWAPO party and one of the ambassadors for the AMT project. “Namibia will benefit greatly from the project. Students will have opportunities that they otherwise wouldn’t have had. The AMT being part of the Event Horizon Telescope has a big entrance into space. A project like the Africa Millimetre Telescope will be a testimony. It will help people open their minds, becoming more sensitive to how wonderful everything could be. Let’s try harder to become closer to each other and be more human.”

IMAGES OF BLACK HOLES

Marc Klein Wolt, director of the AMT project, explains why Namibia is the place to be for this project. “The connection with UNAM is one of the reasons, but even more it provides for an extra telescope in the EHT network on exactly the right spot that makes this virtual telescope more powerful – so we can produce better images of black holes.”

Namibia has a lot to offer. First of all, the relevant natural resources of Namibia are unique: clear, dark nights and a dry location. Furthermore, from Namibia the galactic centre, where the black hole lives, is directly visible right overhead.

SAND AND BUSHES

The first time Klein Wolt visited Namibia (i n 2019), he was shocked. “I landed in the middle of nowhere. It was hot and all I could see was sand and bushes. I couldn’t imagine ever liking this place. There was not much to see outside the airport in Windhoek. I couldn’t help but wonder: why am I here? But after travelling around the country for two weeks, I found it hard to leave Namibia. It has gotten under my skin and by now it feels like home.”

LIKE A PAINTING

The project already has a PhD student in (and from) Namibia. Lott Frans is in his fourth year of physics and geology. He recalls a visit to the Chuno Hochmeister Observatory in Windhoek. “The moon was out and I saw the biggest craters I had ever seen. It was like a painting, like someone painted the moon on the lens of the telescope – that was what made me want to study space, really.” He had almost finished his degree by then and he signed up for the DARA program. “It was so interesting! I learnt how much work there is in those small images we get to see of space. I got even more fascinated than I already was. And knowing my own background and looking at the younger people coming after me, I know that I want to share my skills with others, too”, Frans says. He is one of the UNAM-students who travel around the country with a mobile planetarium to create more awareness of space and our place in it.

VISIBILITY AND IMPACT

Klein Wolt says, “When we thought about building this telescope, I immediately thought about creating an impact in Namibia. I never wanted to just build it and then leave it at that. We don’t need it for a hundred percent of the time for our science goals, so now we are working with Namibian scientists to plan their own research with it.”

To prepare the next generation of Namibian scientists and engineers, Klein Wolt wants to engage the young nów. “This is the reason why we brought a mobile planetarium to Namibia, but also to show that we are sincere about this project and test out how an idea like this is received by the public. It’s something small for us to do, but it creates a lot of impact and visibility. Hopefully that encourages people to trust us that we are trying to do something good. We are using Namibia’s natural resources, so we want to bring something in return”, Klein Wolt emphasises. “Before we had all of the funding ready for the telescope, it was mostly just big plans and words. Now that we take the planetarium around the country, and more than 12,000 children have been inside, it is much more tangible and real.”

METEORITES AND FALLING STARS

“On a small scope, the AMT is a good project for Namibia for its value for the economy and the skills level for the country. On a broader scope this is also good for Africa, for it will allow us to train our own people”, Frans explains. “And on a much larger scale: the Event Horizon Telescope, in which the AMT is an important shackle, is a project I want to be part of because of the science that is involved. This is big science that is good for the country and for the people who will walk in our footsteps. You know, my granny is 92 years old. When I visit her, she lets me tell her about the sky above us, that doesn’t cease to amaze me – and her too. I get to explain to her, in our own language, that there are more stars like our sun, about the celestial bodies we see, about meteorites and falling stars –which actually are not stars but rocks. It’s beautiful to be able to explain this to someone so special to me.”

WHERE IS OUR PLACE?

“This is about the relationship of time and space and where we as humans fit into all of that: a fascinating question”, says Ruppel. “A lot of science will be informed by more and more knowledge. Figures and facts: they require telescopes. It’s a hugely complicated journey and we don’t know where this will end. Pondering where we come from, where is our place in this? We are small in the bigger scheme of things: that quest is huge. It is driven by people coming together, raising these questions.”

The Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT) is a project run by Radboud University (the Netherlands) and the University of Namibia to build a 15-metre size radio telescope on or near the Gamsberg mountain. This telescope will be unique – it is the first completely newly built facility to be part of the Event Horizon Telescope, the project that realised the historical first image of a black hole, and it will be the only telescope of its kind in the whole of Africa. An integral part of the AMT project is a social program which includes a mobile planetarium: an inflatable dome that can host up to thirty children at a time for interactive shows on the wonders of the universe. FlyNamibia together with Nedbank, Gondwana, the Lithon Foundation, Minds in Action, Ineos Grenadiers, the Namibia Science Society, Gree, Perfect Glass and Edu Vision are proud sponsors of the AMT mobile planetarium.