A Rhodes University undergraduate student recently won the European Space Agency contest held to mark the International Year of Astronomy. The 'Be An Integral Astronomer’ competition encouraged participants to analyse data from the Integral Telescope, which keeps a close watch on the Galactic Bulge of our Milky Way galaxy.
Michelle Knights, a third year Physics and Mathematics student with a passion for astronomy, won the undergraduate section of the contest. Her entry involved analysing real data from the Integral Telescope and drawing conclusions about the objects viewed. For the analysis, Michelle taught herself the object oriented programming language Python, which is widely used by South African astronomers.
Michelle first became interested in astronomy at age 6, when her father would take the time to point out the constellations to her. Her parents further encouraged her interest with books and astronomy-related computer games. She is currently studying at Rhodes on a full bursary from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and found out about the Integral contest in April. She worked on her report for four months, whilst keeping up with her studies, and didn't, she says, "get much sleep!"
As part of her prize, Michelle won a trip to Spain and will get to tour the European Astronomy Centre near Madrid. An astronomy "starter kit" was another aspect of the prize, and she is particularly looking forward to receiving and using the Celestron Skyscout; a GPS device which can be pointed at any spot in the sky and will tell you what information is available about that area of space.
The Square Kilometre Array is an international project, and South Africa is competing with Australia for the right to host it. As part of the bid, each country has had to build a prototype for SKA, and thus South Africa has been working on a smaller radio telescope, called MeerKAT. Michelle has had the opportunity to work on this project. Additionally, SKA bursary holders have attended workshops together, and as a group they are planning on creating outreach programmes and the building of an educational centre in Carnavon, where the SKA will be built should South Africa be awarded the project.
Michelle started working part-time for SKA before being awarded her bursary, and chooses to spend her university vacations working at their Johannesburg office. Initially she was involved in basic administration work. However during the last vacation she spent there, in January 2009, she was able to work for one of the astronomers directly, and picked up some of the techniques she used to win the competition during this time.
She plans to continue her studies next year at the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP) at UCT, and intends to move on to a Masters and PhD after completing her Honours degree.
Michelle loves the collaborative nature of astronomy. Astronomers working together focus their telescopes on single objects and gather extremely detailed data; it is not, she explains, something you can successfully do alone. This is an incredibly exciting time to be an astronomer in South Africa, and she is obviously enjoying every moment.
Story by Jeannie McKeown