Speaker, Spain recently opened the world's largest single optical telescope. Called the "Gran Telescopio Canarias", it is a 10,4-metre-long mirror composed of 36 hexagonal segments. It is the latest edition to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory perched about 2 400 metres above La Palma, one of the Spanish Canary Islands. Congratulations to Spain!
If we, in South Africa, succeed in attracting the Square Kilometre Array, we will join the ranks of those who host some of the world's largest telescopes - an exclusive club indeed.
Unlike that of Spain, ours will be a radio telescope, the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. We would then be able to join path- breaking research on the nature of the universe, such as the recent findings that the oldest and most luminous galaxies in the universe may be more compact than was once thought - prompting a re-evaluation of some of the assumptions relating to the evolution of galaxies.