The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) researchers are pleased to know that Australia will share in hosting the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which is the largest telescope ever built. Launched in 2009, ICRAR is a joint venture between The University of Western Australia and Curtin University and has been operating towards the $2 B SKA.
Since 2005, two candidate sites including one in Australia and New Zealand and one in Southern Africa have been bidding to host the SKA. The International SKA Organisation declared that the SKA would be divided between those two sites.
With this new intent to share the SKA, Australia's Mid West will host two major components of the telescope such as the 'Aperture Array' portion that consists of innovative non-moving antennas that can collect lower frequency radio waves from the entire sky as well as an array of dishes integrated with multi-pixel radio cameras designed in Australia. This SKA part will be leveraged to rapidly examine the extensive portion of the sky, a potential of Australian astronomy.
South Africa will host a complementary array of dish-shaped telescopes that can clearly examine the smaller portions of the sky, subsequent to survey portion investigation.
The divide relies on the strengths of site in each country based on the improvement in Australia's expertise during the design and development of radio astronomy survey instruments like the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP).
MWA’s Lead Organisation is the ICRAR's Curtin University node. It is the unique low-frequency Precursor to the SKA, and as a founding member of the 'Aperture Array Design and Construction' consortium. ICRAR will continue to work on SKA's new-generation Aperture Arrays and powerful computing systems.
Due to the availability of investment in both sites, a split SKA can accomplish its scientific goals without any substantial added costs.
Source: http://www.icrar.org/