The Expedition team visiting the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory

The Expedition team visiting the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory

The Transglobal Car Expedition had the privilege to tour the MeerKAT radiotelescope array, a South African-funded and engineered facility that is state-of-the-art for peering into the deepest space.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) is now a partner with the Square Kilometer Array Organization (SKAO) based in the UK and connecting distant telescopes into a single data stream to offer astronomers a new and incredibly powerful tool to look at the very edges of space and time. Already there has been a discovery of massive balloon-like gas formations at the edges of our galaxy, and there’s at least one project looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. It is truly a fascinating and rare opportunity to visit as radio frequency interference (even from a phone or smart watch) can corrupt the observations, so public tours are very infrequent and we had a special introduction to see deeply in.

The Transglobal Car Expedition is a pioneering initiative to circumnavigate the Earth by travelling through the North and South Poles. The expedition incorporates human adventure, technological innovation, scientific data collection and educational media initiatives. At the heart of this amazing journey is a passion for discovery and a collective desire for the local and scientific communities to benefit from its passage.

The expedition, which has been carefully planned over five years and has included several full exploration trials in the Arctic and Antarctic, includes explorers and scientists from eight countries including Canada, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Iceland, Germany and Italy. The Icelandic and Russian teams are considered the world’s experts in wheeled polar travel and this is the first time they have come together for an expedition.