British scientists outline contribution to SKA
Scientists at the UK's University of Manchester are busy developing technologies for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a giant telescope that the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) described as 'a machine that transforms our view of the universe'. The university is carrying out the work in the framework of the EU-funded SKADS (Square Kilometre Array Design Studies) project, which is financed under the Infrastructures priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Manchester University is coordinating two of the project's eight work packages and is a participant in a further two. The SKA will allow astronomers to collect information over one million square metres, making it far more powerful than existing telescopes. Using the telescope, scientists will be able to investigate the early universe, test the theory of relativity, learn more about dark matter and even search for alien life. 'This new telescope will be so big and will be able to operate in so many different ways that it's bound to find things we haven't anticipated,' commented the university's Professor Peter Wilkinson, who is also the UK's SKADS programme leader. 'This is why the prospect of the SKA is so exciting.' One group of researchers at the university is working on the technology for an 'aperture array', which will consist of tens of thousands of small antenna fixed to the ground. When completed, the SKA will have around 250 aperture arrays. Time delays will be used to match up the signals received by each antenna to turn them into a single large 'beam', thereby digitally reproducing what currently happens when a traditional telescope is pointed at a specific part of the sky. However, while most telescopes can only point in one direction at a time, the SKA will be able to 'point' in many directions, and so cover a vast area of the sky at once. The challenge for researchers is to develop a system that can handle the huge amounts of data generated by over 100,000 receivers. 'We are looking at processing an enormous amount of data at astonishing speeds and then stitching it all together to make a system of unprecedented capability,' said Project Engineer Dr Andrew Faulkner of the Jodrell Bank Observatory. The university has teamed up with computer giant IBM, giving its researchers access to the most powerful real-time processing systems available. 'IBM Research's participation in the SKA project is very exciting and the challenge of designing its data processing systems will bring a whole range of new ideas to our multi-core research,' said David Cohn of IBM Research. The SKADS project is set to end in 2009, but work on the construction of the telescope is not expected to start until 2012. Currently South Africa and Australia are vying for the honour of hosting the massive project; a final decision on the matter is expected by the end of the decade. The SKA is scheduled for completion in 2020.
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