Australia to share in SKA telescope

Australia will share in hosting the world’s largest telescope - the square kilometre array (SKA).

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) - a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia (UWA) - has been working towards the $2 billion SKA since its launch in 2009.

“We’ve been working very hard to make SKA a reality and we’re glad to see the project reach this major milestone. ICRAR is looking forward to taking part in the next stage of the SKA through our expertise in engineering, information technology and astronomy,” said ICRAR director Professor Peter Quinn.

The SKA will be split between both candidate sites, one in Southern Africa and one in Australia-New Zealand.

Australia’s mid-west will host two key components of the telescope - a group of dishes equipped with Australian-designed multipixel radio cameras and the ‘aperture array’ portion, made up of non-moving antennas designed to collect lower frequency radio waves from the whole sky. This part will be optimised to survey large portions of the sky quickly.

South Africa will host a complementary group of dish-shaped telescopes designed to observe smaller sections of the sky in more detail, following up on regions of interest discovered using the survey portion.

“This model for splitting the SKA closely follows the workings of other observatories around the world; often separate instruments will survey the sky and inform where another telescope should look closer,” said Professor Quinn.

“Curtin University is proud to be involved in the SKA project through our joint venture partnership in ICRAR. In particular, we are pleased that our early initiatives in the aperture array domain and towards the MWA have proved important in bringing the SKA to Australia. We congratulate everyone involved in the decision, and look forward to the future of this inspiring project,” said Curtin vice-chancellor, Prof Jeanette Hacket.

ICRAR’s node at UWA has been working with international institutions to cost and develop a design for the SKA’s powerful computing systems.

The vice-chancellor of UWA, Prof Paul Johnson, said the university welcomed the opportunity to play a key role in this historic quest to advance human knowledge of science and the universe.

“Hosting part of the square kilometre array in Western Australia will enable researchers at ICRAR’s UWA node to make a significant contribution to this groundbreaking telescope project. Their work on high-performance computing systems for astronomy and sky surveys will help lead a dramatic advance in international astronomy using new-generation telescopes around the world.”

The project recognises the significant investment made by the WA Government, the Australian Federal Government, CSIRO and the ICRAR joint venture partners to turn Western Australia into a hub for science and engineering. Before the SKA starts observations in 2019, the MWA and ASKAP projects, together with iVEC’s $80 million Pawsey Supercomputing Centre and ICRAR itself, will produce innovative science on the path to the SKA.

“These global science endeavours will continue to benefit Western Australia and the international scientific community long into the future. The effort Australia and WA has made in infrastructure, legislation and policies will make the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory a significant centre for global science for decades to come,” says Professor Quinn.

“As an international centre, we’re eager to continue our work with colleagues in Africa and the rest of the world to build the SKA and use it to explore the universe in 10,000 times more detail than ever before.”