Australia begins construction of the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope. This has been reported by Cosmos Magazine.
Construction work continues in a desert area near the city of Murchison in the west of the country. The radio telescope will consist of 130,000 antennas combined into a single interferometer. Because it is in the lands of the Australian aborigines, it is called “Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara”, which in their language means “the exchange of the stars and the sky”. The Australian complex will be part of the overall SKA project, which includes a radio telescope in South Africa and headquarters in Great Britain.
The name of the project reflects the scientists’ initial desire to build a telescope with a total surface area of one square kilometer, but the combined area of the Australian and South African portions of the telescope will be about half that. However, it will still be the world’s largest radio interferometer, allowing very high resolution images of the starry sky to be obtained. It is hypothesized that astronomers will be able to see the birth and death of galaxies, discover new gravitational waves, and significantly expand their understanding of the universe. According to scientists, the telescope will be so sensitive that it will “hear” the operation of a mobile phone on Mars.
Source: Port Altele
