Echoes of the SKA: A short film about the Square Kilometre Array in Africa

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the largest radio telescope in the world when it is completed. One of the two cores is based in the Karoo region of South Africa. MeerKAT is what the current functioning core is called, where KAT stands for Karoo Array Telescope.

This short 15 minute film was created for an academic film competition focused on letting people speak in their own words. I have two other films focused on the SKA which can be found at https://sites.google.com/uwc.ac.za/video-astroanthro-org/home/ska-carnarvon. But this film goes a bit deeper into the history of the region where the SKA is sited and the interviews are minimally edited.

Though the film did not place in the competition, is has been used in undergraduate and masters level Science & Technology Studies classes with discussion at the University of Edinburgh.

“Echoes of the SKA” is free to view and free to use in your classroom and other educational settings. I am curious about what students find new, compelling and troubling – let me know!

Acknowledgements: Parts were filmed as part of the Shared Skies project funded by the Square Kilometre Array and the remainder was funded by the South African National Research Foundation via a Competitive Funding for Unrated Researchers Grant to Jarita Holbrook – “Astronomy & Society” Grant #91535. Hosted by the Physics Department at the University of the Western Cape. I was able to create this film as part of my fellowship at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH).