Africa and Australasia to share Square Kilometre Array (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News

South Africa, Australia and New Zealand will host the biggest radio telescope ever built.

The nations belonging to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) organisation took the decision at a meeting on Friday.

The 1.5bn-euro (£1.2bn) SKA's huge fields of antennas will sweep the sky for answers to the major outstanding questions in astronomy.

They will probe the early Universe, test Einstein's theory of gravity and even search for alien intelligent life.

The project aims to produce a radio telescope with a combined collecting area of one million square metres - equivalent to about 200 football pitches.
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18194984

related post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12286834




Maybe the maintenance crews can provide free rides to paleontologists who want to search the Karoo for more Permian fossils ... just leave the cell phones behind, guys.

[Judi Lynn]

1. AP: New telescope to be in South Africa, Australia

May 25, 1:35 PM EDT
New telescope to be in South Africa, Australia
By DONNA BRYSON
Associated Press

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- Australia and South Africa will share hosting of a giant radio telescope made up of thousands of separate dishes and intended to help scientists figure out the make-up of the universe, the international consortium overseeing the project announced Friday.

South Africa led an African consortium that included Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia, and telescopes will be erected in all its partners. In South Africa, dishes will be added to a remote site in the arid Karoo desert where a smaller radio telescope project already is underway.

South Africa and Australia, which partnered with New Zealand in bidding for the project, had competed fiercely. South Africa claimed victory Friday, saying it got two of the projects three major components.

"We may feel slightly disappointed that we didn't get the whole thing. But I think one should emphasize that we did get most of it," said Justin Jonas, the chief South African scientist on the project. "Two-thirds of the biggest instrument in the world is still the biggest instrument in the world."

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GIANT_TELESCOPE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-05-25-13-35-08