Square Kilometre Array signs off on construction plans – UK last holdout before building phase begins
- Reference: 1601360887
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/29/ska_signoff/
- Source link:
A [1]note from chair Catherine Cesarsky posted on Tuesday says that a meeting conducted on September 17th and 18th considered the three core documents that describe the project – the “SKA-1 Construction Proposal”, “Observatory Establishment and Delivery Plan” and the “SKA Prospectus 2020” – and formally endorsed their contents.
The [2]Prospectus [PDF from Dropbox] explains that the project will build over 130,000 antennae in Australia, plus another 133 in South Africa, eventually totaling a square kilometer of electromagnetic-radiation-detecting apparatus. By way of contrast, the world’s largest radio telescope is the Arecibo observatory at 73,000m 2 . And it is [3]out of commission due to a physical layer problem – a cable broke and some panels collapsed.
The SKA aims to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics
The prospectus also points out that the SKA will make a shedload of data – 130 petabytes of it each year is expected to reach users. And that’s after grooming to remove irrelevant data that will flow from each antenna at a rate of 8.8 terabytes per second. All that data will need to be moved from the antennae to a pair of supercomputers mightier than any currently in existence. The prospectus therefore suggests the SKA could spark breakthroughs to match the World Wide Web, which was born from CERN’s need for collaborative tools, plus more technical inventions to provide wireless comms and meet countless other technical challenges.
The documents still require signoff from one other body – the SKA Observatory Council.
At present, that Council does not exist, but that is not a cause for undue worry because it will be summoned into existence once the SKA Observatory Convention comes into force. The convention requires five signatories and Australia today did its duty, joining South Africa, Italy and The Netherlands.
The UK is expected to be the last signatory and [4]presented the relevant treaty to Parliament in July 2019.
Get on with it, will you? Asking because once the Council comes into being, the project will move from design to building operations, which brings us closer to the real work: as the Prospectus puts it, the SKA aims to "revolutionise our understanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics ®
Get our [5]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.skatelescope.org/notes-from-the-chair/
[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7ghen7sb8h2tog/2016_SKA_Prospectus.pdf?dl=0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/12/arecibo_observatory_damaged/
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/convention-establishing-the-square-kilometre-array-observatory-ms-no272019
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Pure science benefits us mere mortals
I dont know which might be worse. Them not knowing about it and leaving it alone, or them noticing it and embuggerancing it up in some way to profit Dom and chums.
"a pair of supercomputers mightier than any currently in existence"
Please tell me that they're called Deep Thought and Deeper Thought.
Re: "a pair of supercomputers mightier than any currently in existence"
And the answer is: 3 x 7 x 2.
Re: And the answer is ...
I thought it was 6x9 ...
...
... in base 13, naturally
How to make a planet from pebbles
Or make a fascinating addition to FlightRadar. Prospectus reckons the array could detect airport radars light years away.
From a quick skim of the prospectus, it looks fascinating. And Jodrell Bank! And with my engineer's hat on, looks relatively simple, ie lots of antennas to mass produce. Then with my network engineer's hat on, fibre those back up to an ODF, add switches and the rest becomes a software engineer's problem.. Such are the joys of scaling. Seems a bit like a phased array radar on steroids, and when they break down data rates to 'only' the equivalent of 600 blu-ray discs an hour, seems vaguely manageable.
But then processing and interpreting that data falls firmly in my 'I want!' category. No real idea what the data will mean, but I'm sure I'll find some of it fascinating..
Re: Of all that data...
Shirly that is the Musk Ox's satellites?
Units?
>130 petabytes of it each year
what's that in units of pr0n? We have no standard [1]data unit
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
I wonder about the smaller array in SA. If the objective was long baseline interferometry I'd have thought the two arrays would have been more or less the same size.
From skimming the paper, they're 2 different antenna designs covering different frequencies. And presumably there'd be scope in future to expand the number/area of the antenna array(s) as more partners get on board. Presumably whatever's learned from the SKA will help shape number & type of future antennas.
Pure science benefits us mere mortals
This sounds like a seriously cool project. So attempts to probe the deepest recesses of the universe will have direct benefits to us microsocpic dots on a microsopic dot!
Hopefully the Johnson and his other idiots can find time from buggering up Blighty to sign off on this.