On the evening of July 28th, 2008, at 21h14 hours (local time) the Indlebe Radio Telescope, detected a strong source from Sagittarius A, the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 30 thousand light years away from Earth.

To put this achievement into perspective, think about it this way. The energy gained by a grain of rice falling 2 cm in Earth’s gravity, onto a plate, is more than the total energy received by all the radio telescopes in the world operating since 1960.

The Indlebe project was initiated in 2006 by the Department of Electronic Engineering with the primary object of providing engineering projects and research opportunities to undergraduate and postgraduate students working on a real-world complex electronic system. A secondary objective was to provide a vehicle to increase awareness and interest of secondary school students in the fields of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET), and to promote local awareness of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 (IYA2009).

The project leader, Stuart MacPherson, said his students where amazed when they realized the telescope had picked up a signal. “We had made significant changes to the receiver to increase its sensitivity. When we went in that morning to check the data, we found that it had detected a source,” he said.

Indlebe is the Zulu word for ear, an appropriate name for the project when one views the 5 m diameter parabolic reflector antenna of the telescope from above. The telescope is a transit instrument which operates at the Hydrogen Line frequency of 1420 MHz and uses a very sensitive radio receiver to detect extra terrestrial radio sources. A remarkable aspect of the project is that all the hardware, from the antenna and feedhorn to the final analog to digital converter providing a digital representation of the detected source to a pc, has been designed by students and constructed on campus.

Hydrogen gas clouds dispersed throughout our own galaxy, the Milky Way, emit radio waves at a frequency of 1420 MHz. In fact, all objects that are warm emit some radio waves. That includes the Earth and moon, other planets in our solar system, and you. So what does this new find mean? Is this an intelligent radio signal?

Asked whether there is alien life out there, MacPherson laughed and said there's hope and a possibility that the radio signal could be generated by an alien source.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s definitely a great relief for us because now we know that the radio telescope works. The students were excited and shocked at the same time,” he said.

“It’s still early days, but we will move on to bigger things. We are going to increase the sensitivity of the system. The radio telescope will be used for years to come,” he added.

He said the electro-magnetic source was detected in Sagittarius A, which lies in the centre of the Milky Way.

“It is intended that the received data will shortly be made available in real time to interested persons who will be able to graph the data using freely available software,” he said.

You can contact Stuart Macpherson either via This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or by phone on +27 31 373 2538.

Sources:
Indlebe.Dut.Ac.Za
Witness.Co.Za