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The Square Kilometer Array
EyesWideOpen writes "A very ambitious project to build the world's largest radio telescope, named the Square Kilometer Array or SKA, is in its early design stages. As its name suggests the SKA will be one square kilometer in size if it gets built. The SKA consortium (consisting of Cal Tech, Cornell, SETI, the Max Planck Institute and Beijing Astronomical Observatory to name a few) hopes to build the telescope by 2010. "If they succeed the SKA will be so big and precise it will jump the world's current best, the American Very Large Array in New Mexico, by a factor of 100, both in sensitivity and resolution." It's interesting to note that the project is based on technology that will only exist in three, five or seven years -- to account for data rates of tens to hundreds of terabytes per second and storage in the petabytes -- so they're counting on Moore's law to hold true."
This just means more data units for the SETI virus.
www.linuxisforbitches.com
It's interesting to note that the project is based on technology that will only exist in three, five or seven years -- to account for data rates of tens to hundreds of terabytes per second and storage in the petabytes -- so they're counting on Moore's law to hold true.
Moore's law only talks about cost, not about maximal hardware performance. If Moore's law doesn't hold, the project will only be much more expensive, but still possible.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I know I should really "Ask Slashdot" but, how many whatsits are there in a petabyte?
This is great for the astronomy pic of the day fans, but what does it really benefit anyone else? The current telescope arrays are looking pretty far out there. Does this proposed one purport to read the license plates off flying saucers from a million light years away or something?
I have been pwned because my
Now that's something to recieve extraterrestial talk-shows with.
As its name suggests the SKA will be one square kilometer in size if it gets built... ...and will be attended only by sweaty teenagers jerking arrhythmically in wool suits.
--saint
So, they're looking for God then? Which one do you reckon they'll find?
Answer on a postcard please, to the usual address. Cheers.
I don't think I'm very happy. I always fall asleep to the sound of my own screams.
While it might sound sensible at a first glance to build bigger and bigger telescopes on earth, it is in fact incredible stupid.
Modern telescopes should be located on satellites in earth orbit or even on the moon. The troubles with atmosphere and earth's magnetic field fuck up with any observations, no matter at which wavelength. What these guys do might sound technologically advanced, but it is in fact 19th century science.
Modern astronomy calls for the methods and technology applicable in the 21th century which mainly includes space-based observation.
These fools didn't look even on the facts: the incredible success on the hubble space telescope. (Well, there were some troubles with a lens in the beginning, but this is a typical NASA fault: replying too much flawed technology just because it comes from the US, instead of choosing superior European engineering).
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Instead of relying on super-powerful transmissions from the aliens, as we do now, we could detect, for the first time, signals at the same strength as our own and "listen" to most of our own galaxy for them.
This is truly new, and means a SETI "hit" comes into the realm of the probable, IMO. The link is to the "SETI" page on the SKA site. It's down a couple of levels and jargonized, so I don't think I deserve a redundant mod... but you're the boss!
Well now that story a while back about building a terabyte array for cheap
7 20 4&mode=thread&tid=137
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/30/033
is waaaayyy obsolete. Where's our Petabyte arrays? Serously though, there are some pretty giant rado telescopes out there. This one had better be worth the extra cash, I mean, you can't even get Astronomy Pictures of the Day with radio telescopes, the pictures ain't pretty enough!
Yup...
This all reminds me so much of Contact (the book not the movie that I never saw). Sagan's dream of one world cooperating. Finding out that we are not alone in the galaxy by pooling the worlds' resources and finally building such a large radiotelescope that SETI actually works and we get The Message. Of course, it's terrestrial based, which has its limitations. That book was the reason that I stopped by the VLA once when driving from the left coast to the right coast. Pretty spectacular. I liked the fact that Sagan's descriptions of the area were accurate. All those rabbits everywhere. What do they all eat? Maybe the radioastronomers feed them. Kind of made me want to move to New Mexico. The question I'm asking myself is that if we can do a 1 sq km array why not a 2 sq km array? How big would the radiotelescope have to be to see the "edge" of the universe?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Um... 0.3861 square miles.
Given that the wavelength of 'visible' light is approximately half a million times shorter than radio wave wavelengths, the collecting area has to be much larger to get the same antennae gain.
An interesting corollary of this is that the naked eye is (very roughly) as powerful (at visible light wavelengths) as Arecibo is (at radio wavelengths). See the The seti league pages for more info...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I already posted a comment linking to this, as a reply to an earlier story on telescopes (here), and I didn't get modded up to even 2, and now it's a headline? Pfff. I don't believe this.
wasnt seti having problems with a lack of sufficent funding recently? something to do with not having enough computing power to process all their data coming from the clients?
if so how can the seti project itself help this other project? other than an advisory role?
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Obligatory /. joke, you know how to continue...
Well, I've learned my lesson. Next time I'll just submit this as a story. I didn't do it the previous time because I didn't know if the project was ready for that kind of public attention yet, and as there are guys working on this project down the hall from where I work (the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science LIACS) I didn't want to get involved in drawing too much attention when the project wasn't really up to speed yet.
If this will ever get funded (they recently got some money to make first studies) it will be a telescope the size of half the Netherlands. This is of course not a filled aperture, but a sparse one operating at very low frequencies (10-250 MHz, on both sides of the FM frequencies). It will consist of some hundred small "antenna parks" spread around the country and uses a lot of computer power to generate images. It could be a precursor for SKA.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
I'm wondering, what kind of telescope would be needed to see earth-sized extra-solar planets?
Would this thing be able to do it? Anyone here know?
If i count in tens, why wouldn't I measure with them
If God doesn't want to be found, then she won't be.
True, assuming you believe that God is omnipotent. The real question is, what are its motives and why does it hide? I naturally mistrust anything with that much power.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
One of the proposals for the SKA is to use an array of Luneburg lenses, which are basically big balls of polystyrene like material. The material is a dielectric differentially doped so as to focus the incoming signals. Instead of moving a large dish, you only need to move the receiver to focus on a particular signal.
You can see pictures of a Luneburg lens (which was made in Russia) and an artist's conception of the array at the CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility website.
One of the proposed locations for the SKA is in Australia and a number of schools are involved in the SEARFE Project which hooks up a radio receivers to a computers to produce a database of radio frequency usage ("pollution") across the country.
What is the inverse of the Matrix?
Fortunately it's only compared to the VLA in regards of resolution. Single radiotelescopes have no chance in hell to get to extreme resolutions. Resolution is all in the diameter, or baseline. Nothing you can do about, it's just basic physics. Fortunately you can have big holes in your telescope, or inversely just a few parts of the surface. Excactly the principle of the VLA and VLBI in radio frequencies and the VLTI for light. You can even find a simulation applet here
In fact the earth itself is getting too small to get more resolution. Going into space is indeed being looked into, but not in the sense of a satellite like the Hubble orbiting the earth. That would hardly be worth the effort where radio astronomy is concerned. Having a baseline as long as the distance between the earth and the moon, now that would be an improvement. Plus, if it's built on the side that's always turned away from the earth, the telescope will be shielded from all the annoying interference created by all the radiochatter on earth, while it's still possible to look at the same piece of sky as an earth based telescope.
In the visual spectrum, Darwin from ESA looks set to become the next record holder . A first technology demonstration/development flight in the form of SMART-2 is currently under development.
SKA SUCKS!
- check the link before modding ;)
By Mephiskapheles and the Skatelites.
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS--EXCEPT EUROPA.
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
They are building a telescope, and the complution date is 2010. Arthur C Clark Said that this is the year we make contact.
Mean Aliens Suck!
A few square kilometer radiotelescopes were built back in the sixties-seventies. Arrays of the such are in use since the eighties...
> How do you know this is something worth doing?
>
> Or is it just a matter or "because we can build
> something bigger, we should"?
Larger telescopes = the ability to see farther.
So a more apt question would be "Should we explore further, just because we can?"
Isn't the answer obvious?
A very small number of people actually explore our planet and universe. Most of the rest of us sit home and watch them do it on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic specials, and are amazed. The rest prefer the Home Shopping Network and say "who cares about the rest of the universe when we have cubic zirconia?"
> Isn't this what led to the Escalade and the Excursion?
Wow, you're actually comparing bigger and better scientific instruments to ever-larger SUVs?
Eventually, larger telescopes will probably allow us to see the edge of the universe.
They will probably allow us to image planets around other stars.
Then continents on those planets.
Who knows what else we will see. Cities?
As we understand them today, the laws of physics confine us to traveling within our own solar system, but we have the ability see much, much farther. Aren't you interested?
One historical note about Astronomy is we have had to deal with (for the past 20+ years at least) is that we use chips for both our data taking and processing. The size of light detectors are growing at the same Moore's law rate in size as computer chips are in speed. Its a zero-sum game we play as we have always relied on the CPUs to keep up with their CCD brothers.
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
We have Jerry Springer. We don't need no damn alien talk show.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
When the international community is involved in the project, however, a more precise name like "The Square Kilometer Array" is used. Of course, Americans have no idea what a kilometer is, so American magazine Wired refers to it as "this huge radio telescope." Now I can visualize it.
When the U.S. government attempts to top this ten years from now, I'm sure they'll call it "The Very Unprecedented Array in Afghanistan"
Juputier is because it has a large magnetic dynamo, but the other solar system planets are not.
Gee, didnt anyone though of using millions and millions of Direct TV sat dish when people are not watching TV?
Nothing in the laws of Physics confine us to travel within the solar system. Only our own muniscule lifetimes do. You want interstellar travel, hollow out an asteroid, spin it for gravity, install a nuclear reactor and ion drive, and put humans who can live for 10,000 years on it. (I got this from Blue Mars. Great book!)
No, the more apt question is how much of our resources should we spend on exploration (meaning science). Of course, I think it should be more than we spend now.
Also very important is, of that amount, how much do we put into big science projects, and which ones... do we put it into big telescopes, massive accelerators, fusion devices, proteonomic surveys, earth observing satellites, or which? Since there isn't an infinite amount to spend, unfortunately choices have to be made. Even more unfortunately, too many these days are made by politicians.
The proper place of politicians in this issue is how much of our finite government resources should be spent on public science projects, not which projects.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Nothing in the laws of Physics confine us to travel within the solar system
I understand what you mean, but that's a little like saying "This prison cell does not keep me from escaping, my lack of ability to bend inch-thick steel bars does."
By "us" I meant the current crop of Homo Sapiens. Given the current state of the species, we are effectively confined to this solar system.
If you mean "we will not always be confined" I agree, but we must answer several Large Questions first, and big telescopes like the SKA may well help us answer those questions.
Interferometry is a fairly well understood area of astronomy and similar sites are already in use for radio astronomy. I am familiar with a few VLBI related projects:
- The European VLBI network has useful information on their website.
- the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, JIVE, also has some good info.
- Similar work is being done in the United States at various sites including (the one that I am most familiar with) work at the MIT Haystack Observatory.
-----
"They said there's too much caffeine in your bloodstream"
I persobally think it's naive to *assume* that humanity will populate the cosmos. Hell, I can't even guarantee you that we'll be around in another 50 years (how many times have we come close to planet wide destruction? There's several that we do know about (gliches in computers in the US so the US thought the Russians had launched ICBMs -- luckily for all of humanity the US didn't knee-jerk react and immediately launch!). And just from the close calls we do know about. Not to mention the enviroment (our sperm count's decreasing! There's estrogen in the Bay Area! There's mercury in our bodies!).
... but would this necessarily make them peace loving wimps?
/.ers, can't think of a good reason to spend a dime in space exploration).
:(
*anyways*
No, it's not a given, and if I remember correctly, this was one of the variables in the 'Sagan Equation' (not sure if it was his per se, but I did read it in Cosmos). You need life, then you need intelligence, then you need technology, then you need the species to not kill itself, etc.
An advanced civ. that is not violent and therefore doesn't have to worry about self destruction due to petty sword rattling? I hope so, but not sure. A lot of ppl will make the argument that our need to hunt and kill fueled the increases in intelligence and technology.
I guess the little green men could be vegetarian though
Even if we use our own planet as an example, technology & intelligence & the human species are a tiny *flash* in the pan -- the earth was ruled by giant lizard kings for a considerable amount of time (hmmmm.. does this mean we should really be worshipping The Great Coming of The Asteroid, that sort of killed them all and allowed us to evolve?)
So, I don't think *we* are out of the woods yet, not for a long shot.
Even if we survive, don't underestimate the fact that as a species we seem to let the dummest, basest, and least common denominators in our society (politicians) rule us. Ah, the power of a lack of imagination (so many people, almost none
OK, I'm depressed now.
I just recently finished a summer internship at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (which is the organization behind creating and running the VLA) and there is a new project going on there to build a huge interferometer in Chile. I just thought I'd make mention of it for all you astronomy buffs out there. Check it out at http://www.alma.nrao.edu/
Maybe, just maybe we'll know what it meant...
Would be nice, eh?
Ska sucks
-Propaghandi
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
You wouldn't believe how increasingly difficult it is to do decent Radio Astronomy these days. Heck, the processor in your laptop or desktop is likely radiating right in "L" band (about 1.4 GHz). We thought big hulking monitors were bad until we measured the E/M interference from flat panel displays (it's bad). We're struggling to deal with the onslaught of laptops, 802.11b wireless equipment, PDAs and the like at places like Green Bank. And don't even start to talk about Iridium...
I speak for myself, not my employer.
-- This
Jodie Foster or Dr. Fiorella Terenzi?
(My two favorite babes...)
(For those who don't recognize the second name, she is the Director of the Miami Planetarium and she also produces musical CD's based on radiotelescope data. She looks like an Italian porn starlet but is really an astrophysicist educated in Milan.)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
- Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided.
- Arousing doubt; doubtful: a dubious distinction.
- Of questionable character: dubious profits.
The search for microbes was dubious, too. Just for instance.If, by your definition, people only attempted "real science" we would never accomplish anything.
Education is the silver bullet.
> named the Square Kilometer Array or SKA
Truly, this is One Step Beyond.
and yet the yanks still can't find the beardy terrorist in a cave.
what we need is introspection, an end to numbnutted religious types, decent healthcare and the ability to walk outside without the risk of being shot or mugged.
more telescopes? if we actually found intelligence "out there" do you really think they'd look at us and go "oh cool, they look like a nice bunch. let's go invite them to tea"?
christ, if I saw us coming i'd run, and i live here.
According to your link, a typical Earth TV transmitter has an EIRP of 10^6 watts, and an EIRP of 10^6 watts is the limit of what SKA will be able to detect at a distance of four light years.
Well guess what: there is only one star within four light years of us -- Alpha Centauri.
If the Centaurians aren't sitting around watching their version of Jerry Springer, looks like we're back to only being able to detect directed beacons.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.