China News Service, Beijing, July 1st (Reporter Sun Zifa) The latest news from the National Remote Sensing Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China: The Square Kilometer Array Astronomical Observatory (SKAO) Council recently held its third meeting and approved the launch of an international scientific project on July 1. ——The construction of the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope (SKA) has officially entered the construction stage.
According to reports, SKA is constructed and operated by SKAO, an intergovernmental international organization.
SKAO is headquartered in the United Kingdom, with offices in South Africa and Australia. The official members currently include Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, as well as Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, and Spain. Nine countries including Sweden, Sweden and Switzerland participate in the work of SKAO as observers.
SKA is the world's largest synthetic aperture array radio telescope planned to be built and operated by the international astronomy community for 50 years. Compared with the current largest array radio telescope, the sensitivity is about 100 times higher and the search speed is about 10,000 times higher.
Astronomical experts said that after the SKA is completed and put into operation, it will have the opportunity to reveal the most basic major scientific issues of the universe, especially how the first generation of celestial bodies were formed, the formation and evolution of galaxies, the nature of dark energy, the cosmic magnetic field, the nature of gravity, life molecules and extraterrestrials Civilization, etc., a breakthrough in any of these issues will be a major revolution in natural science.
In the pre-construction preparation stage, more than 100 research institutes in about 20 countries around the world participated in the design and development of SKA.
As an important participant of SKA, China has joined forces with superior scientific research institutions from Australia, Italy, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries to jointly participate in the engineering design and development of seven international work package alliances in the construction preparation phase.
The National Remote Sensing Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology stated that after years of technical research, the Chinese R&D team proposed and adopted the design plan for the first phase of the SKA reflector antenna, signal and data transmission work package, and was selected as the SKA reflector antenna international work package in 2017. The chairman of the alliance, presided over the core technology research and development, and completed the construction of the first reflector antenna prototype.
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