The world's largest radio telescope project

The world's largest radio telescope SKA (Square Kilometer Array) will be located in Australia or South Africa. Project director Richard Schilizzi just said this.

The international project, worth $ 1 billion, will install hundreds of antennae distributed over a distance of more than 3,000km. More than half of the antennas will be located in a central area 5km wide.

SKA will be 50 times more accurate than the largest radio telescope currently located at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

Source: nouvelobs China and an Argentine-Brazilian association also embraced the telescope reception. The construction will begin in 2010. The telescope will operate in 2020.

Selected conditions for the installation location are not contaminated by human radio waves capable of obscuring weak waves from the universe. 'Only Australia and South Africa can meet the requirements of SKA,' said Professor Schilizzi in a notice board sent to Paris.

The final decision on the location of the SKA installation will be made by a committee of 5 scientists from 5 years of the country at the end of this decade. Australia proposed the location of Mileura 100km west of Meekathara, while South Africa offered the position of Karoo 95km from Carnavon.

When collecting electromagnetic waves emitted by celestial bodies, SKA will allow to improve knowledge of the universe's childhood, to find mysterious dark energy that causes the rapid increase of galaxies and detectors. find gravitational waves mentioned in relativity. This project also contributes to the quest for intelligent life outside the solar system.

The SKA project is funded by the United States (33%), Europe (33%), Australia (9.5%), Canada (9.5%), China (4.8%), India ( 4.8%) and South Africa (4.8%).