By Rebecca Boyle Posted 05.29.2012 at 3:02 pm 6 Comments

SKA Dish One of the radio antennas in the Australian portion of the Square Kilometer Array. Swinburne Astronomy Productions/SKA Program Development Office

Two continents vying to host the world’s largest telescope will both get a piece, a compromise that apparently makes everyone happy, at least officially. South Africa and eight partner countries will host the majority of the dishes in the first phases, with Australia and New Zealand getting the low-frequency radio dishes in the later phases. The SKA will leverage precursor telescopes both groups have been building for years.

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Technology, Rebecca Boyle, big data, exascale computing, radio telescope array, SKA, Square Kilometre Array, Telescopes
The SKA is planned to be the largest observatory ever, comprising thousands of radio antennas spread across an area the size of a continent, with a collecting area equivalent to one square kilometer. It will study dark energy, search for black holes, look for complex organic molecules in interstellar space, and look back to the cosmic Dark Ages. It’s a massive undertaking, and its science payoff will be equally huge, which is one reason why the Australia-New Zealand and Africa teams were so eager to host it.

As far as telescope-building projects go, this one actually got pretty emotional for a while, with each consortium hyping its existing investment and intellectual capital. The SKA Program Development Office chose both on Friday, with the entire mid-frequency dish array situated in Africa and the low-frequency array in Australia. South Africa, which will host the majority of the dishes, celebrated with a cake the shape of the continent. Naledi Pandor, South African Minister of Science and Technology, said she was happy for Africa, and noted the announcement came on Africa Day. Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia will also host elements of the SKA.

South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope, which is currently being built, will provide most of the collecting area for SKA’s Phase 1. Australia’s existing ASKAP array will also be integrated into the SKA. Now that the dish locations are settled, the next step is to design and build them. Phase 1, which is about 10 percent of the total planned telescope, is supposed to be ready for research by 2020. By then, Phase II will also be under way, with full operations set to begin by 2024.

Spanning the South of Africa: The SKA core and remote stations will be spread throughout Africa.  SKA Africa

6 Comments

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Bagpipes100
05/30/12 at 8:26 am

All that wasted money..... we could be spending it actually figuring out how to harvest resources from the lifeless universe and bring them back here instead of tearing up the only planet w/ life on it in the whole universe.

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Robot
05/30/12 at 8:41 am

A pre ordain assigned waste of money.
This vote was rigged from the beginning.

These dishes could have easily been put in Alaska.
Instead, more USA monies will go overseas from a USA budget that is broken and people in need of jobs.

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techimpi
05/30/12 at 10:43 am

@Bagpipes100: If you want to harvest from the lifeless universe, wouldn't you need to know what it is made of? SKA may be exactly what you are asking for.

@Robot: This isn't a USA backed program. The USA is not a member of this program. I don't know if the USA tried (or even could) compete. Have no fear, your tax dollars are staying put. I have no idea what makes you think the vote was rigged, if it was you would expect only one host country.

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johnt007871
05/30/12 at 3:09 pm

Robot and Badpipes,
take comfort that it is not your land that is being dug up to build these. You just get to reap the benefits.

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GregN913
06/03/12 at 8:34 pm

Robot: These arrays would not be as effective if placed in the Norther Hemisphere *Alaska*, because the center of the Milky Way Galaxy can only be seen form the southern hemisphere. "Modern" astronomy would be several hundred years ahead of it's current state, if only the fertile crescent had occurred in the southern hemisphere.
Also, it is good that the array is spanning many different continents and countries. If anything, humanity needs to learn about cooperation across boarderlines. Also, the parallax view of these telescopes will yield excellent data about the distance and magnitude of celestial bodies. Spreading the array out, apart from the relay communication problem (solved presumably) will greatly increase it's effectiveness so long as everyone involved remembers to play nice.



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