‘Ear’ Now gone Tomorrow
March 24th 2011 23:59
Category: Radio Astronomy
Proposed look at the future SKA antenna array
CURRENT MOON
A new more radical radio telescope project is about to be undertaken in outback Australia.
I should say a series of telescopes would be a more accurate description.
It is a bit like having 3000 individual ears all listening to the distant sound of the stars and the sounds of stars passed tomorrow’s stars that have long since vanished by there energy lives on.
The project’s is called the Kilometre Array or "SKA" when completed will be the largest proposed telescope on Earth.
The SKA project will be 50 times larger than the world’s current largest radio telescope. The SKA will connect to 3000 dish individual antennas and will stream this information to a supercomputer, the amount of information produced will be staggering.
All the information collected from each individual telescope will be combined and distributed by the world’s fastest broadband network running at 100 terabytes per second. That is equivalent to 10 times the world’s daily internet traffic.
Considering the total amount of current digital information produced world wide in one year is around 26 exabytes.
Forget about Gigabytes and Terabytes the SKA will generate two Exabytes in a about 4 days, and exceed the yearly global internet traffic amount in about one month !.
The computer alone will run at one million million million operations per second or one ‘Exabyte.
The entire project will be funded by 20 countries and will have a full governing body in place by the end of this year 2011.
If you where to put each antenna end to end it would span 5500km, although around half of those dish antennas will be located in a central 5km by 5km region somewhere in Western Australia.
We have the space required to build this antenna array, space in one aspect Australia certainly doesn't lack.
To refer to this project as being a little ambitious is an understatement. When completed this combined telescope array will be at the forefront of technology giving mankind a better understanding of what is around us.
We will be knocking at the front door of the cosmos and we will be looking at almost the very beginning dare I say it, the very genesis of the universe.
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
From the sound of it, it is strictly informational in nature. Is there a counter-part that is able to initiate any sort of response, should there be a confirmed contact? What sort of analysis is it able to do? Will it be manned or just monitored once everything is in place?
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
The facility we be designed to study the cosmic background radiation of many different types of stars including black holes and their makeup. Most of this radiation is the remnants of the big bang.
The facility will have staff attached as well as remote monitoring status.
Its prime function is to map the universe and not necessarily listen out for other intelligent life forms.
It may even have a military function.