The first Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) Collaboration Meeting was held at the Protea Hotel in Umhlanga over three days.
The meeting proved to be extremely successful, attracting more than 50 HIRAX members in person and online. Regular meetings are planned for the future.
The project aims to build a cutting-edge, compact telescope array in the Karoo in South Africa, starting with 128 dishes and eventually expanding to over 1000 dishes.
The main aim of HIRAX is to trace the evolution of dark energy by measuring ripples present in the distribution of hydrogen in the universe. The HIRAX telescope will operate at radio frequencies of 400-800 Megahertz and benefit from the radio-quiet skies in the Karoo astronomy reserve. The telescope array will be hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The HIRAX consortium is made up of both local and international partners and is led by project’s Principal Investigator, Professor Kavilan Moodley of UKZN.
