admin After decades of research and planning, construction on the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the World’s biggest and the most powerful observatory of radio-astronomy is officially resuming today. The Square Kilometer Array will be split within the remote observatories in Western Australia’s Mid-West and South Africa’s Karoo region. Together they are producing a huge telescope with a collecting area of about one square kilometer.
Ceremonies will take place with both countries to break ground and expecting the astronomers and the local communities to travel to celebrate the milestone with officials from the SKA Observatory (SKAO). “The Square Kilometer Array is asset for the communities. It is not just a radio astronomy although it is our collective understanding of Universe. After several years of research, planning, and designing, this amazing construction of SKA has about to start with an enthusiasm.” Said Professor Tara Murphy, Head of the School of Physics at the University of Sydney.
SKA is the biggest scientific projects of this century, the scientist will be able to look back in the previous history of the universe when the 1st stars and galaxies were formed. Through this telescope, scientist will able to investigate dark energy, and the reason behind expansion of Universe, and also study about the extraterrestrial life.
Australia site is called as SKA-Low and it will compose around 130,000 Christmas tree-like antennas, while the African site setup the second array of 197 traditional dishes and is known as SKA-Mid. SKA-Mid will detect frequencies between 350 megahertz and 15.4 gigahertz and SKA-Low will pick-up frequencies between 50 megahertz to 350 megahertz.
“This project will define the next 50 years of radio astronomy listing the birth and the deaths of galaxies, finding new types of gravitational waves and expanding the limits of research about the universe.” said Dr. Sarah Pearce, the director of SKA-Low telescope.
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