Malta Café Scientifique’s event tomorrow tackles the matter of space by looking at a proposed technological project, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

Humans have an infinite fascination with the universe. The SKA, the world’s largest radio telescope, will revolutionise our understanding of the cosmos. It will be composed of tens of thousands of antennas and thousands of dishes and will generate enough data to fill 30,000 DVDs every second.

The SKA will span thousands of kilometres, spread across Australia and sub-Saharan Africa. The Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) is developing part of the software infrastructure which will make this happen.

The data generated by the antennas and dishes needs to be processed in real time, on different types of hardware, so that scientists can then analyse and interpret it. The hundreds of thousands of components making up the SKA need to be monitored and controlled in real time as well, so that any malfunctioning part can be replaced, making sure that the data chain is as little affected as possible.

This is not a simple task, and both custom hardware and software elements are being prototyped for this. When built, this telescope will be capable of observing all the galaxies in the universe.

The question remains – will the SKA help us see how the universe started?

Café Scientifique opened its first café in Leeds in 1998. Organiser Duncan Dallas was inspired by the Café Philosophique movement which was started in France in 1992 by the philosopher Marc Sautet. In these sessions, key scientific exponents present on a subject and this is then followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Tomorrow’s session will see the participation of Alessio Magro and Andrea Demarco.

■ Organised by Spazju Kreattiv, the event starts at 7.30pm at St James Cavalier in Valletta. It will take place in English. For more information, visit http://kreattivita.org .