On Thursday, a global collaboration for the world’s largest radio telescope took formal shape with the constitution of an Intergovernmental Council. The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) project, spanning two continents and involving the participation of 20 countries, is expected to be ready for carrying out observations towards the end of this decade.
What will SKAO do?
- Headquartered and controlled from the UK, the SKA is not a single telescope but will be an array of antennas strategically designed and set up in South Africa and Australia. It is proposed to be built in two phases, with an estimated 1.8 billion euros required for phase-I, planned over the next ten years.
- SKA will allow astronomers to look deeper into the universe and unravel secrets about its evolution. Among its goals are: studying the universe and its evolution, the origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism, and dark energy and evolution of galaxies. Scientists are also optimistic that the SKA will be able to detect very weak extra-terrestrial signals and search for molecules that support life.
The Design:
- The telescope in South Africa will have 197 dishes, each 15 metres in diameter, and will be located in the Karoo region. Of these, 64 dishes are on site and are at present operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory.
- The telescope in Australia will have 1,31,072 antennas, each measuring 2 m high. They will be installed on the campus of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
- Started in 2014, the design and engineering took six years to complete, with science and policy proposals coming from over 1,000 scientists, and more than 500 engineers representing 20-plus countries who deliberated over three decades.
Is India among the participating countries?
- Yes, India is participating in SKAO. through the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Pune-based TIFR-National Centre for Radio Astrophysics leads a team of researchers including from Raman Research Institute, Indian Institute of Science, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, IITs of Kanpur, Kharagpur and Indore, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Presidency College and IISER-Mohali.
- The Indian team was among the first to submit and get the design approval of a highly sophisticated Telescope Manager (TM), nicknamed “nervous system”, of the SKA observatory. The Indian team has now been chosen to lead the construction of the TM system, which will be responsible for end-to-end operations of SKAO.
- India will also contribute towards building digital hardware for the SKA low-frequency receiver systems, some parts of the receiver for the SKA mid-frequency telescopes along with parts of the data processing units.
Significance:
- Some of the questions that scientists hope to address using this telescope:
- The beginning of the universe.
- How and when the first stars were born.
- The life-cycle of a galaxy.
- Exploring the possibility of detecting technologically-active civilisations elsewhere in our galaxy.
- Understanding where gravitational waves come from.
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