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South Africa Wins Science Panel's Backing To Host SKA Telescope
ananyo writes "A scientific panel has narrowly recommended South Africa over Australia as the best site for the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an enormous US$2.1-billion radio telescope. While the project's member states have yet to make a final decision on where the telescope will go, the odds are now that the African bid will ultimately win out against the joint bid from Australia and New Zealand to host the project. The SKA radio telescope will be made up of some a 3,000 dishes, each 15 metres in diameter. The project will try to answer big questions about the early Universe: how the first elements heavier than helium formed, for example, and how the first galaxies coalesced. The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."
Is the project's security taken into consideration? South Africa isn't the most stable of countries, and its neighbours to the north are highly unstable.
that it's not over yet.
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I will admit that I don't know the cultures of both places very well, but between the two...
Wouldn't you go with Australia based on population density alone? This is a radio telescope, something you want in someplace remote. You pick a square kilometer out in the middle of the outback, there's going to be like NO local interference. South Africa has approximately 40 times the population density, and they seem to be spread around the country a little more evenly than Australia.
Host the SKA telescope? Super Rad.
Maybe they will be able to see the Martian girl from planet V.
I don't have time to read TFA, so please tell us what SA has over Au?
We are talking about a project that worth BILLIONS, and that the structures (radar and all) must be kept in a place
I don't mean to be patronizing - but I just can't see how Sa can win over Au in term of safety
Or is PC --- as in Political Correctness --- an important criteria in choosing Sa over Au?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds â" something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."
It'll be Hitler's speech for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
--
BMO
Would an extraterrestrial digital TV signal be recognized? Or would it just be seem to be white noise?
Rumours and unidentified sources are not facts. Even TFA says, "Final decision on Square Kilometer Array's location not expected before April." There's plenty of time for trading of horse, greasing of palms etc.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds â" something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."
God forbid they've received our terrestrial signals!
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The continent of Africa, as a whole, is woefully underdeveloped for astronomy (like it is for lots of other things). Yes, South Africa has some decent stuff, like SALT, based on the Hobby-Eberley scope in Texas, which is quite large. And the Canaries have plenty of observatories near Africa, but they're under Spanish control. A SKA would probably include some outlying dishes one or even two countries removed from South Africa, which would help make science more visible in those countries as well. /Biased since I work in astronomy and am married to an African. ;)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Wide open spaces with no light pollution. This can finally be an asset! Not kidding either, go down there for vacation, the night sky is amazing.
It's going to South Africa which is sort of stable due to the fact that it's filled with minerals but also an assortment of other African countries that switch between civil war and democracy every few years. I read an article in the Guardian a few months ago about how giving this project to Africa would show how great the future of Africa is. However when Africa needs stability more than anything and warlords and militias to cease to exist I fail to see how importing a bunch of white european scientists is going to improve the future. Is it going to make the various Konies behave themselves now that there's a giant telescope in Africa?
This whole thing feels political, Australia and New Zealand are better situated from a geographical point of view and isn't the point of this telescope to get the best data possible?
Just as light pollution is a problem for astronomers, Radio Spectrum Pollution is a problem for radio astronomers. Won't this be a big problem in South Africa?
With that constant drone of vuvuzelas, you can't hear a damn thing in that country.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
WAke me up when the Two Tone array goes in!
Arjen Rudd: [holds up his wallet] Diplomatic immunity! HA HA HA!
[Roger slowly rolls his head on his neck, takes aim, and fires - his bullet goes through Rudd's wallet, and then his head]
Roger Murtaugh: It's just been revoked!
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
If I were paying the bill, I would vote for South Africa due to the abundance of cheap labor available compared to Australia. Cheap labor is a huge advantage with such a huge construction project. You might even be able to import labor from a nearby country. OTOH, if I think in terms of centuries or millenia, I would vote for Australia due to its long term political stability, its physical isolation and its much greater size. Look back 100 (or even 10,000) years and ask yourself which country would be more likely to suffer from a military attack on the array. We really should be thinking in terms of all the changes that can happen in centuries or millenia. Australia is simply a much safer place to build such a device than is South Africa. Even Chile or Argentina would probably be safer, although I could envision a war between the two countries in which one bombs the other's SKA. Still, both Chile and Argentina have better internal stability than SA, which will always be a bit of a powder keg due to the racial tensions.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I think they should add a few telescopes in northeastern Brazil too, as judged by looking at Google Earth.
The northeastern tip of Brazil would be a nice addition to the spiral mentioned in the article.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An event such as this?
.
how many rudeboys does it take to work the SKA telescope? one to look in the eyepiece and three to pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!
I know I have no vote in that matter. But if I could, I would vote for South Africa. For two reasons: First, it is a poor country with a growing problem in violence. The cause of that is the high unemployment rate and problems in the education system and the overall education. This is typical for countries where the wealth is distributed unequally. The same problems are known in China or Brazil or even the USA. Therefore, the telescope should go there because it will generate jobs there, it will increase the feeling of people that something is actually developing, and it improves the desire for knowledge which normally has positive effects to the education system as well (at least people what ti be educated more than before). Second, it is a great country. I have been there and I liked it. It was a dynamic society. Not like those Western countries which have big problems in that area.
BTW: Australia is most likely also a great country. But I have never been there and I do not have relatives there. So my vote is for ZA and not AUS.
"The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."
I suspect that the intelligence of any society goes briefly upward upon inventing a television...and sharply downward as soon as something is actually broadcast to it.
I also suppose, however, that our own notion of what constitutes a "thinking man" ("sapiens") species prevents us from lowering the requirement of what's called "intelligent," so as to ensure that we qualify to be discovered by any TV-watching extraterrestrials who might care to share their soap operas with us. Hmmmm...that would take satellite TV to a whole new quantum of junk delivery...
Call me when they decide where to put the Reggae telescope.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
--Rudyard Kipling, 1899
After over 100 years we still haven't learned a damn thing, have we?
Seriously, most technological societies will probably go through a very brief period where they broadcast megawatt signals all over their planet. Following their adoption of cellular, mesh and other similar low power systems, they will appear to 'go dark' in the RF spectrum to distant observers.
Now if we can pick up their power grid frequencies, that will be useful. Are they like us good Americans, using 60 Hz? Or commie socialist Europeans with 50 Hz?
Have gnu, will travel.
1. Build a StarTram in the Himalayas.
2. Send all the aluminium struts and panels to the moon.
3. Build the SKA on the far side of the moon.
Cold temperatures. No atmosphere to get in the way. Most terrestrial interference would be blocked by the moon itself. Most frequencies that you might want to listen for are being blocked by the atmosphere. We have some atmospheric windows at 1-15 Ghz, 34 - 37 Ghz, and 73 - 77 Ghz and, aside from the visual spectrum, that's about it. Pathetic really. For all we know some friendly aliens on Alpha Centauri could be broadcasting to us outside of those windows and we'd never know. Higher frequencies are more efficient for deep space transmission. So it's actually quite likely. Maybe that's the cause of The Great Silence aka The Fermi Paradox. Maybe we need an SKA in space before we can start picking up transmissions from The Federation.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Wouldn't assembling the Teleoscope on the Moon give it a better chance of always having a "clear" time to view with? Using Robotics to assemble the componets and very few Human Tenders if any?
Or remove all doubt that the extraterrestrial life is intelligent.
With deep roots going back to the late 50's, I am saddened that Jamaica was not selected.
So that's what you kids call trombones nowadays...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%28%2815%2F2%29%5E2*pi%29*3000%29%5E%281%2F2%29
Although not yet settled it would be bad for South Africa (in combination with other African countries) to get the SKA.
Sometimes you should put first world countries first with important projects like the SKA. Australia/New Zealand has never had a "super science" project and has basically been crying out for one for a long time.
As it is, Australian/New Zealand Universities teach science (physics as well as biology, etc.) rather well, but graduates often have to go overseas to use their knowledge in actual science jobs. It would be a shame to see this project that could inspire science generally and provide good science jobs not see the benefits of being in a country that could really use the project and give more back to it.