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HESS measurement boosts Namibia’s gamma-ray telescope prospects

25th July 2014

By: Leandi Kolver

Creamer Media Deputy Editor

  

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The Namibia-based High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) recently measured pulsed gamma rays in the southern sky from ground level for the first time, strengthening the country’s bid to host the world’s largest gamma ray telescope, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has revealed.

Wits, in collaboration with international scientists and other South African universities, including North-West University, the University of the Free State and the University of Johannesburg were responsible for the operation of the HESS telescope.

Wits physicists were particularly involved in data analysis techniques, the development of theoretical interpretation tools of both extragalactic and galactic sources, and in the operational shifts at the telescope location in Namibia.

Wits explained that the radiation measured by the HESS originated from the Vela pulsar, a neutron star that was formed when a massive star collapsed.

“This is the first pulsar detected by HESS II – the latest upgrade of the HESS with a new configuration of five telescopes – and the detection is only the second pulsar ever detected by ground-based gamma ray telescopes, after the Crab pulsar was detected by the Veritas observatory in Arizona, in the US, in 2011,” Wits pointed out.

Wits School of Physics Professor Sergio Colafrancesco said this latest measurement showed that, with the fifth large telescope that was added to the existing four-telescope array in 2012, HESS was producing “extremely interesting” science.

“It is also very good news for [Namibia’s] bid to host the CTA, and for South Africa and astrophysics research groups, such as the Wits Astrophysics Group, as it will give Southern Africa a unique advantage to explore fundamental questions such as the nature of dark matter or the origin of cosmic rays with the aid of the world’s most powerful radio telescopes,” he said.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Magazine Managing Editor

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