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Square Kilometre Array

General Studies- III (Awareness in the fields of Space)

Gist of Editorials  

05 Feb 2021

The Square Kilometre Array has been a dream of radio astronomers for nearly 3 decades. The project officially becomes the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO).

Last month, a treaty ratified by six of the project’s member governments came into force.

The project’s governing council—with delegates from the six ratifying nations and 10 others as observers—meets (virtually) for the first time and conjures the SKAO into existence.

What is the SKAO?

SKAO is a new intergovernmental organisation dedicated to radio astronomy.

  • It is headquartered in the UK.
  • At the moment, organisations from ten countries are a part of the SKAO. These include: Australia, Canada, China, India, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK.

Objective:

  • The aim is to build the world’s biggest radio observatory, originally envisioned as having 1 square kilometer of collecting area.
  • With such a photon-gathering potential, the telescope could see the universe’s very first stars and galaxies, study the effects of cosmic magnetism and gravity, and listen for the signs of alien civilizations.

What are radio telescopes?

Unlike optical telescopes, radio telescopes can detect invisible gas and, therefore, they can reveal areas of space that may be obscured by cosmic dust.

  • Significantly, since the first radio signals were detected by physicist Karl Jansky in the 1930s, astronomers have used radio telescopes to detect radio waves emitted by different objects in the universe and explore it.
  • According to NASA, the field of radio astronomy evolved after World War II and became one of the most important tools for making astronomical observations since.

The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, which was the second-largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, collapsed in December 2020.

Significance of the SKA telescope

  • The telescope, proposed to be the largest radio telescope in the world, will be located in Africa and Australia whose operation.
  • Its maintenance and construction will be overseen by SKAO.
  • The completion is expected to take nearly a decade at a cost of over £1.8 billion.

Source: Science

 

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