The ambitious Square KilometRE Array (SKA) project has started to bear fruit. Despite being only a quarter of its final size, the MeerKAT radio telescope under construction in the Karoo region in South Africa has already delivered a fresh perspective on the cosmos. MeerKAT’s First Light image using 16 of its eventual 64 dishes has revealed more than 1,300 galaxies in a small patch of sky where only 70 were previously known. And the MeerKAT is just the first step towards the multinational SKA project’s goal of building the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
Rob Adam, project director of SKA South Africa, says: “The launch of MeerKAT AR1 and its first results are a significant milestone for South Africa. Through MeerKAT, South Africa is playing a key role in the design and development of technology for the SKA. The South African team of more than 200 young scientists, engineers and technicians, in collaboration with industry, local and foreign universities and institutions, has developed the technologies and systems for MeerKAT. These include cutting-edge telescope antennas and receivers, signal processing, timing, telescope management, computing and data storage systems and algorithms for data processing.”
“Based on the results being shown today, we are confident that after all 64 dishes are in place, MeerKAT will be the world’s leading telescope of its kind until the advent of SKA,” says Justin Jonas, chief technologist at SKA South Africa.
The huge SKA network will bring together another 133 dishes in South Africa as well as over 130,000 low-frequency antennas in Australia, enabling the universe to be scanned in unprecedented detail thousands of times faster than current technology. Once MeerKAT is complete, construction on the remainder of the SKA is expected to begin in 2018.
Malta is an observer member of the SKA consortium and is heavily involved in the project. The Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy at the University of Malta is currently working on releasing the software infrastructure for a small-scale prototype of the Low-Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA), as well as developing cutting-edge algorithms for imaging the data observed by the telescope.
The prototype is scheduled to be completed by September this year, followed by a deployment phase in the Australian desert. It will consist of a network of 400 low-frequency antennas. The LFAA will explore the edge of the universe where matter that everything is made of emerged out of the plasma of the Big Bang.
Did you know…
• If you eat a polar bear’s liver, you will die of a vitamin A overdose.
• If you combine all the ants in the world, they’ll weigh about the same as if you combine all the people.
• 12% of people dream in black and white.
• The flamingo can only eat when its head is upside down.
For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think
Sound bites
• Tesla Motors is working on modifications to its autopilot system after it failed to stop for a tractor-trailer rig in a Florida crash that killed the driver of a Model S sedan. CEO Elon Musk, in a Twitter post Thursday night, said Tesla was working on improvements to the radar system. Autopilot uses cameras, radar and computers to detect objects and automatically brake if a Tesla vehicle is about to hit something.
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-tesla-autopilot-radar.html#jCp
• Scientists have discovered the real reason turtles have shells. Many thought turtle shells were for protection. However, new findings suggest that the broadening of the ribs in turtles was an initial adaptation for burrowing to escape the extremely arid environment of South Africa around 260 million years ago. Later, the ribs were incorporated into the modern protective turtle shell.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715171312.htm