![]() ![]() This centre will provide direct connections to data collected with the telescope as well as science support to enable ground-breaking discoveries.” Canada will be entitled to a 6 percent use-share of the observatory, “access to a next generation radio astronomy facility” and support for “the establishment of a domestic regional centre. In return, the announcement identified that Canada will receive several benefits for its contributions. This includes the digital correlator, the all-important ‘brain’ behind the SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa.” The SKAO’s announcement of the partnership said that the Herzberg Centre “has been identified to represent Canada in the governance of the SKAO and will work with domestic and international partners to deliver key observatory systems. Canadian data-processing technology in the form of a “digital correlator,” made by NRC’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre and their industry partner MDA, is being used in processing data for the South African array. The arrays will generate immense amounts of data, and as the data is “faint and buried in noise,” it will take equally immense computing power to process. Even before the announcement of official partnership, the National Research Council (NRC) announced a cooperation agreement in late 2021, saying that Canada would be helping with the project as the Government decided on official partnership.Īt the time, NRC President Iain Stewart said that “we are pleased to continue collaboration with our international partners on this transformative science facility” and that SKAO will “open doors for ground-breaking discoveries by Canadian astronomers.” The NRC also said that “Canadian astronomers have identified access to the SKA as a top priority in their decadal long-range plans in 2000, 20,” and that “scientists from across Canada participate in nearly all SKAO science working groups.”Ĭanada’s principal contribution has been building one of the “brains” of the arrays. Though Canada was not an initial signatory, Canada has been contributing to the project for a while. ![]() Seven countries signed onto the convention: Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The SKA Observatory Convention was established in 2019, and construction activities started in 2021. In 2012, sites at locations in Australia and South Africa were selected, and a permanent headquarters was established in the United Kingdom. That gave rise to the SKAO concept, and a decades-long campaign to realize the construction of these immense arrays. In fact, it would require more than one of these arrays, due to the different wavelengths of radio that each array would need to study. They determined that studying these questions would require not one telescope, but an enormous array of telescopes, at least a square kilometre in size. No single radio telescope could manage this, no matter how large, and in the 1980s scientists began devising a kind of telescope that actually could manage the job. ![]() The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is the realization of a long-theorized project to study how the universe evolved in its earliest days at the Cosmic Dawn, and what that means for fundamental questions in astrophysics.Īs the SKAO website explains, early stars and galaxies are “exceptionally faint,” and the most useful information comes from studying (for example) the ionization of early hydrogen particles from light photons. ![]() The announcement formalizes Canada’s long involvement in Square Kilometre Array Observatory, and provides a variety of benefits for Canadian astronomers peering into the distant past of the Universe. Enhanced Satellite Communication Project – PolarĬanada has officially announced its intention to join as a partner in the Square Kilometre Array Observatory.Licensing Physicians for Practicing Medicine in Space March 14, 2023 ![]()
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