Day: December 5, 2022

In a remote corner of the Western Australian outback, work has begun on the world’s largest radio telescope. Astronomers say the Square Kilometre Array will be capable of searching the stars for signals of intelligent life and listening back to the start of the universe.

It is an international scientific collaboration. 130,000 antennas and 200 satellite dishes will make up the Square Kilometre Array project, or SKA. It will comprise two giant and super sensitive telescopes at observatories in Australia and South Africa.

By listening and looking deep into space, scientists hope the project can help answer some fundamental questions: Are we alone in the universe? How did the first stars come to shine? and What exactly is “dark energy” — the mysterious phenomena that appears to be pulling the cosmos apart?

Experts have said the SKA needs to be set up far away from the disturbances of radio frequencies on earth like those from computers, cars and planes.

They have said it will be eight times more sensitive than existing telescopes and will map the sky 135 times faster.

Danny Price, a senior research fellow at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy at Curtin University, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday that the SKA has unprecedented astronomical power.

“It is going to be one of the most sensitive instruments that humanity has ever built,” Price said. “To put it into perspective the SKA could detect a mobile phone in the pocket of an astronaut on Mars.”

Australia, South Africa, Canada and Britain are among more than a dozen countries providing funding to the project.

A land agreement between traditional Indigenous owners, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization — the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency and the Western Australian and federal governments has allowed construction of the international Square Kilometre Array telescope to officially start Monday.

The giant radio telescope is expected to be operational by the end of the decade.

Source: Voice of America

“Today, there are more children in need of humanitarian assistance than at any other time in recent history,” according to UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

Monday, UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, launched an emergency appeal for $10.3 billion, designed to help 173 million people, including 110 million children, that the agency says have been impacted by “humanitarian crises, the enduring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide and the growing threat of climate-impacted severe weather events.”

The agency says climate change “is also worsening the scale and intensity of emergencies,” with the last 10 years being the hottest on record. In the last 30 years, the number of climate-related disasters has tripled, UNICEF says.

“Today, over 400 million children live in areas of high or extremely high-water vulnerability,” according to UNICEF.

Russell said, “The devastating impacts of climate change are an ever-present threat to children” and that is why UNICEF is “prioritizing climate adaptation and resilience building as part of our humanitarian response.”

Source: Voice of America

An investigation has been initiated into a vessel of interest after it was intercepted in the Joint Management Area of the Mascarene Plateau Region, co-managed by Seychelles and Mauritius.

According to director of the Regional Coordination Operations Centre (RCOC), Sam Gonthier, the interception happened during the first bilateral operation of the centre within the area undertaken by the military of the two countries.

Dubbed Operation Yellowfin, the mission saw the deployment of assets from Seychelles and the Mauritian Coastguard and Air Force. The operation, which took place from November 14 to November 21, resulted in a Taiwanese fishing vessel being directed to Mauritius for further investigation by the relevant authorities there.

The operation was launched and coordinated by RCOC, a centre based in Seychelles. It benefits from real-time intelligence and information from the Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) in Madagascar allowing surface and air assets to conduct their missions with decisiveness and with precision, according to centre.

In a press conference on Friday, Gonthier, said, “The Mauritian authorities are currently conducting investigations to determine the offence committed by the vessel with the view of ensuring that the necessary legal finish is attained.”

The aim of Operation Yellowfin was to establish a presence in the Joint Management Area as well as identify activities being carried out by vessels in the area. It promotes regional maritime security and interoperability between signatory parties of the 2018 regional agreements facilitated by the Indian Ocean Commission under the EU-funded Maritime Security (MASE) Programme.

The officer in charge of the MASE Programme, Rahj Mohabeer, outlined that “during surveillance that we have been carrying out in the area for the past one and a half years we have found that there are dozens, if not hundreds of vessels that come to the area.”

He said that they do not understand what the vessels are doing there.

“For example, we have seen tankers leaving the Singapore region and according to their route are supposed to go to the US but we see them going to that particular region and being there for several weeks. We have found that there are at least 16 different types of infractions against IMO rules among those vessels that we have observed in the area. This first operation is key as this will send out the message that we are looking,” said Mohabeer.

Talking about the interception, the director of the National Information Sharing and Coordination Centre (NISSC), Gerard Wong Pool, explained that during air patrols by the Seychelles Air Force and Mauritius Air Force, vessels of interest were detected and the intercepted Taiwanese fishing vessel was one of them.

“The Seychelles Coast Guard vessel, PS Etoile, made the first interception where the vessel of interest was boarded during which its documents were checked. Upon inspection, it was established that the vessel was without a flag. All information collected was sent to the NISCC, which shared this with RCOC. RCOC shared with all regional centres taking part in the operation,” he added.

“Mauritius carried out certain investigations on their side. This is when we saw discrepancies in the movement of the vessel and we asked that CGS Barracuda also carry out an interception,” said Wong Pool.

The vessel was later forcefully directed to the Mauritian port with 18 crew members on board of different nationalities.

Source: Seychelles News Agency