Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Construction of the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), has officially started in Australia after three decades of development.
Split across South Africa and Australia, and headquartered in the UK, the observatory will be the largest radio observatory in the world after its completion in 2028.
Facility to help scientists unveil cosmic mysteries
The facility will enable scientists to study the “cosmic dawn”, the time period in the universe’s early history when the first stars and galaxies came into existence. It will also help address few of the most puzzling cosmic riddles which have left scientists curious for ages, such as why is the universe expanding, the nature of dark energy and even the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Thousands of antennas be deployed amid construction
Almost 200 parabolic antennas, or “dishes,” and 131,000 dipole antennas will be part of the initial architecture of the project aimed at the construction of an effective collecting area that could measure over hundreds of thousands of square metres. This will give the radio observatory unparalleled sensitivity and resolution as it peeks deep into the sky.
The system will work at a frequency range of roughly 50 megahertz to 25 gigahertz, enabling the telescope to detect even the extremely faint radio signals coming from cosmic sources located billions of light-years away from our planet.
