Some of the antennas constructed at the Murchison Widefield Array, 500 km northeast of Perth, one of the new radio telescope projects slated to start up in Australia.
Credit: Murchison Widefield Array
SYDNEY: Radio astronomy in Australia is “riding the crest” of a funding wave in the lead up to Australia’s bid to host the massive Square Kilometre Array radio telescope - but not everyone’s happy.
A decision on whether Australia or South Africa will host the SKA, an ambitious project consisting of hundreds of antennas acting as one big telescope thousands of kilometres across, is a long way off, around early 2012.
But Australian radio astronomy is already reaping the benefits of Federal and international funding in related projects.
Money can buy you knowledge
This weekend the international SKA Program Development Office will announce which country will host the team responsible for working out the full cost and specifications of the telescope, with the total cost earmarked at A$2 billion. The telescope is expected to be running by 2020.
Speaking at the launch of a new space education science initiative at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney today, Kim Carr, Australia's Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, said the SKA will be “the most significant science infrastructure project we will be engaged in this century and will give us the ability to see 10 times further [into space] than we can today.”
The Australian government recognises the need “to address identified skills shortages in science and engineering by encouraging young Australians to further their studies in these critical fields,” he told reporters at the launch of Pathways to Space, a collaborative education and research project that will allow Australian students to get the ‘feel’ of space research through simulated mission exhibit at the museum.
Riding the crest of the wave
While the Pathways program clocked up A$1 million in funding, A$350 million in national funding has been spent so far on precursor technology for the SKA, such as the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), both situated at Murchison in Western Australia, around 500 km northeast of Perth.
The telescopes are expected to provide new insights into deep space questions, such as how the universe’s first stars formed and what is dark energy, the mysterious force that drives the expansion of the universe.
