CONTACT ISSUE O4 JUNE 2020 INSIGHTS INTO THE MAX PLANCK SKA DISH PROTOTYPE SKA PARTNERS CONTRIBUTE TO PANDEMIC RESPONSE ASKAP UNVEILS UNIVERSE’S MISSING MATTER SKA Contact - Edition 4 - Main Version_v4.indd 1 05/06/2020 12:05 CONTENTS 07 13 18 A screenshot of the 32nd meeting of the SKA Board of Directors, taking place virtually on Zoom. 22 30 The notes from the Chair of the Board are available here. FOREWORD FEATURED IMAGE Dear Friends and Colleagues, 03 Prof. Philip Diamond, SKA Director-General 20 ”The Origin of Darkness and the Moon” Welcome to this, the fourth edition of Within the project, work has continued at Contact. The magazine provides some pace. The external review of the Operations IN BRIEF LETS TALK ABOUT fascinating stories of happenings across the Plan was a great success, as was the Cost SKA partnership. It is especially uplifting Review conducted by the engineering firm 04 Switzerland’s EPFL joins SKAO 22 Cosmic magnetism to read these and to see the international Arup. They, along with the System Critical collaboration that SKA embodies be so Design Review completed in March, have 04 South Africa ratifies the SKA Observatory Convention active in these difficult times. As I wrote given great confidence to me, the senior team 05 SKA Science team gearing up for Data Challenge #2 HQ CORNER the introduction for the previous issue of at SKAO and our international stakeholders Contact, COVID-19 was severely affecting that the SKA is proceeding to construction. 06 LOFAR seeks citizen scientists to hunt for black holes 24 2 minutes with… David Briggs, some countries, and as we all know, it Our staff are now heavily focused on finalising 06 Astronomy outreach goes virtual to Lord-Lieutenant of Cheshire has now spread across the globe. I’m not the SKA1 Construction Proposal and what support home-staying families 24 Moving to a new reality sure that any of us could have predicted we call the Observatory Establishment and the impact this would have on our daily Delivery Plan (which combines Operations, 07 Particle detector for SKA-Low calibrated in Germany 25 Meet the Team: Legal lives, and the sadness it would bring to so the Development Programme and the 08 Celebrating National Science Day in India many. I do hope that we are beginning to so-called business-enabling functions, 08 A new trailer for NCRA PATHFINDERS see positive signs from all that the world’s such as HR, Finance, Procurement, people and governments have done. Communications etc); these key documents 09 SKA-Low prototype antenna sparks commercial spinoff 26 MeerKAT data reveals unexpected features in will be submitted to the SKA Organisation 09 Portuguese SKA white book released distant galaxy In the SKA, as for many activities around Board later in the year for sign-off and will the world, we have had to learn a different then be passed to the Council of the SKA 27 MeerKAT solves mystery of X-shaped galaxies 10 SKA frequency and timing testing way of working. The use of Zoom and Observatory, when it has been established. at the University of Manchester 28 FAST turns to operations from construction video-conferencing from home, which has 29 Astronomers discover new class of cosmic explosions been such a boon to us all, would likely not On that last point, it was extremely gratifying have been possible just a few years ago. to see, literally as I write this, the press FOCUS ON 30 ASKAP helps to unveil Universe’s missing matter I’m sure we all remember the earlier days release issued which announces that the 11 Around the world, the SKA partners of unreliable video-conferencing and low Republic of South Africa has ratified the SKA contribute to pandemic response TEAM SKA internet bandwidths. It is somewhat ironic Observatory Convention. South Africa is the that the digital communications revolution third country to ratify, and the first of our The DARA Projects: Training a new 13 32 Nathaneal Morgan – Mechanical Engineer, SARAO which underlies the technology of the SKA, three host countries. I am hopeful that we’ll generation of African scientists is the same that has made it possible for see the ratification process completing in a good fraction of the world’s business other partner countries in the near future. NEWS & JOBS INSIGHT to continue during the pandemic. 34 News Roundup I hope you and your families remain safe. 16 Insights into the Max Planck SKA dish prototype 35 SKA Jobs / Partner Publications 18 Lessons learned from building a Prof. Philip Diamond, SKA Director-General telescope in the Outback 19 EU-funded project supports the SKA 2 CONTACT | JUNE 2020 3 SKA Contact - Edition 4 - Main Version_v4.indd 2-3 05/06/2020 12:05 IN BRIEF SWITZERLAND’S EPFL JOINS SKAO BY SKAO In April, the SKA Organisation welcomed its 14th member, Many Swiss research institutions and industry partners are the Swiss science and technology university École contributing to various aspects of the SKA, and annual Swiss Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), following SKA Days are now in their fifth year, showcasing the breadth a unanimous decision by the SKA Board of Directors. of opportunities for others to become involved. The Federal Council also recently triggered the first political debate in EPFL is now the lead institution coordinating involvement parliament regarding Switzerland’s possible participation in the SKA on behalf of the Swiss academic community*. as a member state of the SKA Observatory in the future. Switzerland has a history of world-class research and “Switzerland is the proud Seat of CERN and a dedicated development in science and astronomy, and at a member of the European Southern Observatory and national level has held observer status within the SKA of the European Space Agency,” said Xavier Reymond, Organisation since 2016. Swiss-based scientists are Deputy Director General for International Research active in eight of the SKA’s Science Working Groups. Organisations at the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, who is in charge of the relationship between Switzerland and SKAO. “Therefore, A sneak peek at an early version of the challenge’s we all look forward to assessing the opportunity to data cube, showing galaxies up to a redshift of 0.5 – complement these intergovernmental endeavours with that’s a distance of around 4 billion light years. the upcoming SKA Observatory, which shares the same Credit: Dr Philippa Hartley dedication to better understanding the Universe.” *The Swiss Academic Community includes Universities of Geneva, Zurich, Bern, ETHZ, CSCS, SKA SCIENCE TEAM GEARING FHNW, HES-SO, and Verkehrshaus Lucern UP FOR DATA CHALLENGE #2 Read more on the EPFL website. BY SKAO The main EPFL campus in Lausanne sits on the shores of Lake Geneva. Credit: Mediacom EPFL; CC BY-SA 4.0. Preparations are accelerating for This time instead of downloading The Shanghai SKA Regional SKA’s Science Data Challenge 2, the data to their own computers, Centre Prototype and ENGAGE- which will be launched later this year. participants will access and process SKA Portugal cluster are lined up The aim of the Data Challenges is to these data using major computing to store and process the data, prepare the scientific community for facilities, just as SKA users will and others may join them. the reality of working with SKA data. eventually have to do via the SOUTH AFRICA RATIFIES SKA Regional Centres (SRC). This As well as helping the SKA Science and Run by the SKAO Science team, the allows future users to familiarise Operations teams to test the model THE SKA OBSERVATORY new challenge will be an HI galaxy themselves with the kind of computing of transferring data back and forth simulation in which teams are asked environments the SKA will provide. to dispersed computing clusters, the to locate galaxies and discern their challenge will also start a dialogue CONVENTION properties using mock SKA data. “Using computing clusters allows between users and the facilities They’ll do so by running their own us to test that SRC model, and also involved to identify any training or BY SKAO software analysis tools on a 3D means we can create a much bigger additional tools that would be useful. “data cube” – a series of stacked data set for the challenge, around one South Africa ratified the Convention Establishing the SKA Observatory at the end of May after the South African radio images, each reflecting a terabyte in this case, which otherwise The SKA HI Science Working Parliament approved the text and Dr Naledi Pandor, Minister of the Department of International Relations and different frequency. Unlike a 2D could take weeks to download,” Group will soon begin testing and Cooperation, signed the Instrument of Ratification. image, the data cube will allow says SKA Project Scientist Dr Anna debugging a subset of the data researchers to determine things like Bonaldi, who is co-leading the work. as part of the preparations. South Africa was among the seven countries that signed the we expect Australia, China, Portugal and the how fast the galaxy rotates, and Convention in Rome on 12 March 2019, alongside Australia, UK to ratify in the coming months, with how much mass it must contain. China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United other countries joining the Observatory Kingdom. The Convention will enter into force once five in due course. Once the SKA countries, including the three hosts Australia, South Africa Observatory is up and running, and the UK, ratify the text. construction of the largest science facility on the planet “This is a significant moment not only because South Africa will begin in earnest.” Read is the first of our hosts to ratify the Convention, but with more on the SKA website.