Status of astronomy in Namibia
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Date
Authors
Backes, M.
Evans, R.
Kasai, E.K.
Steenkamp, R.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
ICTP
Abstract
Astronomy plays a major role in the scientific landscape of Namibia and Southern Africa. Considerable progress has been achieved
scientifically as well as in terms of human capacity development in the field. In all wavelength regimes accessible with ground-based
instruments, the largest of those instruments are situated in Southern Africa: MeerKAT, the Southern African Large Telescope, and
the High Energy Stereoscopic System. Because of the excellent observing conditions from Namibian soil, further large-scale projects
such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array considered sites in Namibia and the Africa Millimetre Telescope will eventually be built
there. Against this background, the current situation of astronomical research and education in Namibia is reviewed, focusing on
optical, radio and gamma-ray astronomy and also including smaller scale projects. Further, the role of astronomy, with particular
focus on developmental aspects in the African context is outlined and the progress in human capacity development is summarized
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Citation
Backes, M. et al. 2018. Status of astronomy in Namibia. Proceedings of the first African Conference on Fundamental Physics and Applications 2018, Namibia. African review of physics, 13: Article no 16:90-95. [http://lamp.ictp.it/index.php/aphysrev/article/view/1607/583]