SKA Decision due on Friday

[astroron (Ron)]

Here's hoping Australia is successful

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18194984

Cheers

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Oooh, about time.
It's 9:30am here now so I hope they can sort it out soon, my guess we might have to wait all day for the decision though.

Fingers crossed.

edit: Just read that a media conference is scheduled for 3:30pm today, another 6 hours away.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

It's to be shared.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-en...84#TWEET150666
Any news on how it's to be split up yet?

ANZ low frequency and SA mid frequency, apparantly.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I guess they'll have to sit down and work that out.
I'm still not sure how I feel about this decision.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

It'll feel a lot better if we got the core array and data centre as well.

A statement will be released soon according to the buzz on twitter although some are saying SA will have the most.

Following is the text of the announcement made by the SKA organisation:
The Members of the SKA Organisation today agreed on a dual site solution for the Square Kilometre Array telescope, a crucial step towards building the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope.
The ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) and MeerKAT precursor dishes will be incorporated into Phase I of the SKA which will deliver more science and will maximise on investments already made by both Australia and South Africa.
The majority of the members were in favour of a dual-site implementation model for SKA. The members noted the report from the SKA Site Advisory Committee that both sites were well suited to hosting the SKA and that the report provided justification for the relative advantages and disadvantages of both locations, but that they identified Southern Africa as the preferred site. The members also received advice from the working group set up to look at dual site options.
The majority of SKA dishes in Phase 1 will be built in South Africa, combined with MeerKAT. Further SKA dishes will be added to the ASKAP array in Australia. All the dishes and the mid frequency aperture arrays for Phase II of the SKA will be built in Southern Africa while the low frequency aperture array antennas for Phase I and II will be built in Australia.
“This hugely important step for the project allows us to progress the design and prepare for the construction phase of the telescope. The SKA will transform our view of the Universe; with it we will see back to the moments after the Big Bang and discover previously unexplored parts of the cosmos,” says Dr Michiel van Haarlem, Interim Director General of the SKA Organisation.
The SKA will enable astronomers to glimpse the formation and evolution of the very first stars and galaxies after the Big Bang, investigate the nature of gravity, and possibly even discover life beyond Earth.
“Today we are a stage closer to achieving our goal of building the SKA. This position was reached after very careful consideration of information gathered from extensive investigations at both candidate sites,” said Professor John Womersley, Chair of the SKA Board of Directors. “I would like to thank all those involved in the site selection process for the tremendous work they have put in to enable us to reach this point.”
Factors taken into account during the site selection process included levels of radio frequency interference, the long term sustainability of a radio quiet zone, the physical characteristics of the site, long distance data network connectivity, the operating and infrastructure costs as well as the political and working environment.
The agreement was reached by the Members of the SKA Organisation who did not bid to host the SKA (Canada, China, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). The Office of the SKA Organisation will now lead a detailed definition period to clarify the implementation.
Scientists and engineers from around the world, together with industry partners, are participating in the SKA project which is driving technology development in antennas, data transport, software and computing, and power. The influence of the SKA project extends beyond radio astronomy. The design, construction and operation of the SKA have the potential to impact skills development, employment and economic growth in science, engineering and associated industries, not only in the host countries but in all partner countries.
About the SKA

The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10,000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes.
Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3,000 km from the centre of the telescope, the SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth.
The target construction cost is €1,500 million and construction of Phase 1 of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2019. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters in Manchester UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project.
Members of the SKA Organisation:
Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
Canada: National Research Council
China: National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
The Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council
Associate member:
India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics

http://spaceinfo.com.au/2012/05/26/s...+news+daily%29

[Adelastro1 (Wayne England)]

Didn't see that coming, but a lot better than nothing! It makes sense to use ASKAP which isn't too far off running. A great test run for the real thing, and to work out how to handle all that data at once!

I reckon this is as big for astronomy as the LHC for particle physics! And we have a part of it! Now the government needs to be fully supportive and also better promote science as a career pathway. I work in Sciences at Adelaide Uni and we always have to put in a lot of effort to promote science as most disciplines struggle to attract students. Schools need to get on board and promote it too! Having facilities like this certainly helps though! I now look forward to talking to potential students about the SKA...

[AstralTraveller (David)]

So, is the glass is half full or half empty? I think half full - we have a share of something really big and that has to be good. It will be interesting to see the executive summary of the report (I assume the full report will be a massive tome) and see how they perceive the relative merits.

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

A major share of "the prize" is given to a country with no real background in radio astronomy, with significant political risk and very significant internal security problems, and which had a major technical failure with the SALT telescope.
That country is not Australia!

I just knew that they were going to give it to S.A. in order to "help the underprivileged"

In contrast, as we all know, Australia is equal-second in the world in Radio Astronomy (with the Netherlands), and it has a long history of successful radio astronomy projects..... with a lot of first-rate professional radio astronomers many of whom also know how to design and build equipment.

Optical astronomy was always significant in South Africa, but never radio astronomy.

[gary]

The SKA Members Statement of the General Meeting of 25 May 2012 appears here -
http://www.skatelescope.org/news/ska...eting-25-2012/

Originally Posted by SKA Members Statement

The SOWG work shows that a scientifically justified and technically viable approach is possible, and concludes that in SKA1, viable dual-site implementations exist that not only maintain, but add to, the scientific appeal of the first stage of SKA. A dual site also offers a model which maximises the financial viability of the project in the longer term, through continuation of the current Organisation membership and a global character that will be attractive to future members.

The original proposed SKA1 and SKA2 configurations are shown graphically
in this 2011 report on pages 8, 9 and 10 here -
http://www.skatelescope.org/public/2...ription_v2.pdf

[gary]

Some definitions:
SKA1 Low frequency range : 70 - 450 MHz
SKA1 Mid frequency range capability : 0.3 - 10 GHz (initial implementation 0.45 - 3 GHz)

It is proposed that Australia and New Zealand site the low frequency antennas.

The SKA Working Group in 2007 identified two "major science goals which drive the technical specifications of SKA1" -

Originally Posted by SKA Memo 125

(i) Understanding the history and role of neutral Hydrogen in the Universe from the dark ages to the present-day, and

(ii) Detecting and timing binary pulsars and spin-stable millisecond pulsars in order to test theories of gravity
(including General Relativity and quantum gravity), to discover gravitational waves from cosmological sources,
and to determine the equation of state of nuclear matter.

Neutral hydrogen (HI) is detected at what is known as the hydrogen line which is at 1.42GHz (21cm).

However, it becomes red-shifted to lower frequencies for distant galaxies.

According to the abstract of this 2009 Nature paper by Chang et. al -

Originally Posted by Chang et. al

Observations of 21-cm radio emission by neutral hydrogen at redshifts z ≈ 0.5 to ~2.5 are expected to provide a sensitive probe of cosmic dark energy.
This is particularly true around the onset of acceleration at z ≈ 1, where traditional optical cosmology becomes very difficult because of the infrared opacity of the atmosphere. Hitherto, 21-cm emission has been detected only to z = 0.24.

This presentation by Martin Zwaan of ESO is entitled "All you would like to do with the SKA on neutral hydrogen" -
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/mee..._VRS_Zwaan.pdf

It has slides which propose HI surveys at mid-frequency ranges at z<2 and also
HI surveys requiring a year of integration at z=3 (deep) using low frequencies (350MHz).

So the Australian and New Zealand low-frequency SKA antennas will play a vitally
important role in discoveries at the very distant, highly re-shifted (high z) extents of the
universe.

Congratulations to all those who worked so hard on the Australian and New Zealand bid.
Their forward thinking is going to enable us to look back close to the beginning of time.