S. POTTER
In 1820, the Reverend Fearon Fallows, a British astronomer and clergyman, set up what would become South Africa's first permanent observatory. Fallows's mission, sparked by imprecise celestial charts causing too many shipwrecks, marked the beginning of the 'colonial' period of astronomy, the impact of which still reverberates today.
Historically, many of the observatories in the southern hemisphere have resembled high-tech islands in scientifically underdeveloped environments. But this is beginning to change. The clear night skies and dry atmosphere in this part of the world have attracted a growing number of professional stargazers, as well as engineers and technicians, from Europe and North America. But in recent years, an increasing number of local scientists have started to participate in astronomy at modern observatories and universities in their home countries. The job market for local astronomers in the southern hemisphere is expanding rapidly, notably in Chile, which hosts some of the finest and most powerful telescopes in the world.
Not only has the number and quality of astronomers increased, but associated disciplines have also been benefiting from the boom. At Chilean facilities, for example, more than 80% of engineering, technical-support and civil-development staff are recruited from the local job market, according to Felix Mirabel, head of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) office for science in Santiago.
Boom time
Thanks to its ideal geographical location and atmospheric conditions, Chile has become an astronomy hot spot. The country will cement its standing in the field when the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA), a US$1-billion facility is installed 5,000 metres above sea level in the Atacama desert. This is expected to begin operations in 2011.
Astronomers Patricia Whitelock and Felix Mirabel think investment in education is key to their countries' long-term success in astronomy.
Adding to this, in May, an international group of astronomers selected Cerro Pachón, a 2,682-metre mountain peak in northern Chile, as the site for the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Funding uncertainties notwithstanding, the telescope is scheduled to see first light in 2012.
The first big international observatory, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), arrived in Chile 40 years ago, but as a domestic discipline Chilean astronomy is relatively new. Twenty years ago, most of the scientific, technical and engineering staff working at Chilean observatories were foreigners. But the small community became increasingly unhappy with the quasi-colonial interaction they had with European collaborators.
In the late 1960s, an agreement between Chile and the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory— America's national centre for ground-based optical astronomy — granted Chilean astronomers 10% of observatory viewing time. However, the country still had no such agreement with ESO. In the early 1990s, Chilean astronomers, such as Maria Teresa Ruiz, demanded that Chileans get more in return for providing ground and infrastructure (Nature 363, 384; 199310.1038/363384a0).
The complaints were not in vain. A 1996 agreement with ESO guaranteed 10% observing time for the locals. "The situation has changed completely in the past few years," says Ruiz, long-time director of astronomy at the University of Chile in Santiago and chair of the Chilean Telescope Time Allocation Committee. "Everybody is happy and trusts each other."
Some critics say, however, that the relatively small Chilean astronomical community is not yet able to use its observing time effectively. Competition for observing time is much less pronounced in Chile than in Europe and the United States, where typically only one out of five applications is approved. In Chile, one of every two is approved. "We're still a small community," says Mónica Rubio, a professor of astronomy at the University of Chile and president of the Chilean Astronomical Society, noting that researchers are focused on projects with the biggest potential impact. Chilean astronomers are logging significant hours on the large but not the small telescopes, she says.
"We need to train more young scientists, and enable them to make the best possible use of observation time," Ruiz says. Because the infrastructure already exists, Chile can afford to focus resources on education. "It makes a lot of sense for us to invest in brains rather than in telescopes," says Ruiz. "We can achieve a lot with only a small amount of money."
This strategy is already being employed. In 1995, Chilean universities had only 22 full-time astronomers. By 2005, the number had almost tripled to 64, of which 42 are full professors. Over the past ten years, the number of postgraduate students enrolled in astronomy has increased eightfold, says Mirabel. To strengthen training opportunities in the field, three Chilean universities have recently established PhD programmes for astronomers. And the astronomy department at the University of Chile is developing its own millimetre-wave laboratory in order to refine receivers for the ALMA telescope in collaboration with scientists in Europe.
All aboard
Because of racism and political instability, South Africa has long been unpopular as a host country for the international astronomy community.
That changed when apartheid was abolished in 1994. South Africa now hosts the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. Called the South African Large Telescope (SALT), it began operation in September 2005. SALT was built in collaboration with the United States, Poland, Germany, Britain and New Zealand. But unlike most telescopes in Chile, the facility is not merely a western export of scientific infrastructure. Plans for its development came from South African scientists who were eager to keep pace with the international astronomy community.
ESO
Testing is under way in preparation for the Atacama Large Millimetre Array, a powerful telescope that will be hosted in Chile.
SALT will achieve cutting-edge astronomical observations at a near-perfect site at Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province, according to Patricia Whitelock, head of the astronomy division at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), in Cape Town. South African scientists should be able to effectively use their 35% share of the total SALT observation time available, she says. Whitelock notes that two large surveys, one galactic and one cosmological, have been proposed, each of which alone would use the country's share of observation time from SALT for more than a year.
She adds, however, that South Africa lacks a sufficient number of well-trained postdocs and PhD students to analyse the expected wealth of observations. At present, the South African community consists of only 65 astronomers spread across the country, which makes teaching on a high academic level difficult. The SAAO's National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme, set up in 2003, has been tasked with producing the needed researchers. It will target in particular the disadvantaged communities of women and black scientists.
The programme, funded jointly by private foundations and the South African National Research Foundation, is based at the University of Cape Town. Lecturing staff hail from the entire South African astronomy and space-physics community. Students lacking funds receive generous bursaries, a crucial factor given that poverty is commonplace. By the end of 2006, 50 honours students and 20 MSc students will have graduated. Before the programme, South Africa had no more than one honours graduate per year.
But the programme has recently run to a deficit. The government has promised additional support but hasn't yet allocated the money, leading to concerns over the programme's continuation. "It would be a disaster for South Africa if we simply end up as technicians running telescopes and leave our international partners to do the science," says Whitelock.
World leaders
But leading scientists at ESO predict that Chile and South Africa will further strengthen their role in international astronomy. "Chile has very good astronomers and manages to use its time pretty efficiently," says Bruno Leibundgut, head of ESO's office for science in Garching, Germany.
The example of Spain, he says, illustrates how much a host country can benefit from foreign investment in astronomy facilities. Astronomy in Spain blossomed after its first international observatory was built at Calar Alto near Almería in the 1970s. Back then the tiny Spanish community consisted of no more than 20 astronomers. Today, Spain has around 500 astronomers, each of whom publishes one paper per year on average; Spanish astronomers account for 6% of the publication output in astronomy world-wide.
Spain also has acquired the expertise and financial potential necessary to build its own facilities. By the end of the year, the Gran Telescopio Canarias, a large optical and infrared telescope spanning ten metres across, will begin operation on the Canary Island of La Palma (Nature 435, 140–142; 2005). The telescope is a mostly Spanish-built project with only a 10% share held by the United States and Mexico.
For astronomers, Spain, which signed a pre-agreement to join ESO in February, has an excellent job market. "We are still short of astronomers," says Xavier Barcons, a research professor at the Institute of Physics of Cantabria, who manages Spain's astronomy and astrophysics programme.
But countries such as Chile and South Africa still face major challenges in a field that's changing rapidly, according to Rubio. Researchers must store and process heaps of data streaming in from survey telescopes. Data archiving and mining capabilities are increasingly important. Whereas the United States and Europe have started to build databases to deal with the data deluge, Chile has yet to cultivate the necessary technical expertise or infrastructure. "It's a big challenge for Chilean astronomy," she says.