LIONS were pretty much the last thing the radio astronomers wanted to encounter. The researchers were on the lookout for sites in the southern African veld where stray radio signals were at their weakest, but as they crossed the border from South Africa into Botswana, they found a pride of lions already in residence at a remote site that they wanted to measure.
Lions notwithstanding, the remoteness of parts of southern Africa is one reason why the region has been shortlisted as a potential site for a huge new radio telescope called the Square Kilometre Array. The SKA will have…
