On site in South Africa and Australia, the SKA observatory celebrates the start of construction for the observatory's world-leading radio telescope on 5 December 2022. Chalmers leads Sweden's participation in the project.
In the middle of the Karoo desert in South Africa's Northern Cape province lies the site where the telescope SKA-Mid will be built. The SKAO Council Chair Dr Catherine Cesarsky will travel to the Northern Cape province to represent the Observatory at the site of the future SKA-Mid telescope. Director-General Prof Phil Diamond is due to attend a similar ceremony in Western Australia where the SKA-Low telescope will be located. In Sweden, the event will be celebrated with cake at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg; Chalmers and Onsala Space Observatory are coordinating Sweden's contribution to what will be the world's largest and most advanced radio telescopes.
John Conway is professor of radio astronomy at Chalmers and director of Onsala Space Observatory.
- The telescopes in SKA are now becoming a reality on site in South Africa and Australia, and all over the world preparations are underway for both gigantic amounts of data and major scientific breakthroughs. I am grateful for all the work that colleagues in Sweden and all over the world have put in this far on these fantastic telescopes. It is an honour for us to have been entrusted with this task by both the traditional owners of the land and by the governments of the member countries, he says.
Photographer: SKAO
Read more:
SKA Observatory celebrates start of telescope construction in Australia and South Africa (media release 5 December 2022, SKAO)
More about SKA construction on SKAO's website www.skao.int
Key role in the world's largest radio telescope project (Chalmers article september 2021)
Contacts
Robert Cumming, communicator, Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers, tel: +46 31-772 5500 or +46 70 493 3114, robert.cumming@chalmers.se.
John Conway, professor and infrastructure director, Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers, +46 31-772 5500, john.conway@chalmers.se
Bilder och multimedia
For images and films, see the SKAO's media kit at skao.int
A (top) - Thousands of smaller antennas will make up SKA-Low, the observatory's telescope in Australia.
Illustration: SKAO
B - A total of 133 dish antennas will make up the telescope SKA-Mid in South Africa.
Illustration: SKAO
Contact
- Communications Officer, Onsala Space Observatory, Space, Earth and Environment
- Full Professor, Onsala Space Observatory, Space, Earth and Environment