Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory; Credit: M Gaylard / HartRAO
- Last week it was announced that first point-to-point network will be established between Europe’s GÉANT and African UbuntuNet Alliance which will allow astronomers across continents to work together via the Joint Institute for VLBI in the Netherlands and the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory in South Africa. The CEO of the UbuntuNet Alliance, Dr F.F. (Tusu) Tusubira, noted: “Providing a point-to-point link between Hartebeesthoek and JIVE in the Netherlands benefits the entire global radio astronomy community, as it enables faster, more detailed observations to be shared in real-time and consequently dramatically increases our knowledge of the universe.”
- Researchers in Finland have discovered that the Cairo Calendar, developed by ancient Egyptian astronomers to create a precise tracking of days, documents a cycle of 29.6 days (a lunar month), as well as a second cycle of 2.85 days, which is proposed to correspond to the variability of Algol, a bright star visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Perseus. The Egyptian data can be used to better understand the change in Algol’s behavior from ancient times to modern times.
Cosmos Diary 