Australia's new Square Kilometer Array, or SKA, is almost a reality. The MWA, or Murchison Widefield Array, a precursor to the more encompassing SKA system was switched on today to test the telescope's ability to explore the origins of the universe.
The Murchison Widefield Array, or MWA, a low frequency radio telescope placed in the far outback, has started to compile data from the Southern Hemisphere sky.
Australia's scientific community is all agog. This is the first precursor to the SKA to be completed and be fully operational.
The Array, together with the exploration of the nascent universe, is also online to better understand the interactions between sun and earth, will earlier detection of flares and CMEs, or coronal mass ejections, and our own galaxy.
The project is a multinational effort that groups together southern hemisphere countries like South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
The other telescopes, in the other southern hemisphere countries will begin construction in 2016.
The SKA is comprised of a thicket of antennas that are placed in the most remote locations, to avoid light pollution, and collect radio signals from cosmic bodies and phenomena that are undetectable by telescopes.
They are so powerful that they exceed the most modern instruments by 10,000 times. They will be able to explore in depth black holes, dark energy and exploding stars.
The Array in Australia will also be the key precursor to the SKA's Low Frequency Array.
The MWA is made of 2.048 diple antennae, arranged in a tile pattern of 128 pods, about 100 km west of Meekathara in the red sand Australian desert.
Source: France 24/ 7.9.13
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