The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Will Be an I
INVITED PAPER TheSquareKilometreArray This telescope, to be the largest in the world, will probe the evolution of black holes as well as the basic properties, birth and death of the Universe. By Peter E. Dewdney, Peter J. Hall, Richard T. Schilizzi, and T. Joseph L. W. Lazio ABSTRACT | The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be an I. INTRODUCTION ultrasensitive radio telescope, built to further the understand- Advances in astronomy over the past decades have brought ing of the most important phenomena in the Universe, the international community to the verge of charting a including some pertaining to the birth and eventual death of complete history of the Universe. In order to achieve this the Universe itself. Over the next few years, the SKA will make goal, the world community is pooling resources and ex- the transition from an early formative to a well-defined design. pertise to design and construct powerful observatories that This paper outlines how the scientific challenges are translated will probe the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to into technical challenges, how the application of recent gamma-rays, and even beyond the electromagnetic spectrum, technology offers the potential of affordably meeting these studying gravitational waves, cosmic rays, and neutrinos. challenges, and how the choices of technology will ultimately The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be one of these be made. The SKA will be an array of coherently connected telescopes, a radio telescope with an aperture of up to a antennas spread over an area about 3000 km in extent, with an million square meters. The SKA was formulated from the 2 aggregate antenna collecting area of up to 106 m at centimeter very beginning as an international, astronomer-led (Bgrass and meter wavelengths.
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