4/1/2023 0 Comments Kilometre array“This is Australia’s first-ever hosting of a mega-science project, a really big international project - we’ve got many great science facilities, run by both the CSIRO and universities and institutes around the country, but this is the first international mega-science project. “It’s the beginning of the legal entity that the money will flow to from the member countries and the start of construction, conceptually, so it's a really big event in the history of the project,” “I think for many people the transition last week might not have seemed like a really big milestone, but it really is, it’s huge,” said Antony (Ant) Schinckel, Head of the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science SKA Programme, who also leads the Australian infrastructure design and development, rolling out the long-term construction and implementation of Australia’s portion of the mega-telescope. One that will continue to provide benefit to both the astronomical and wider, general community for many decades to come, including inspiring the future STEM participants across the country. On Australia’s behalf, the Government is committed to supporting the project with both establishment of the radio-quiet zone out where the telescope will be built, and ongoing funding commitments made in 2015, including the $294 million dedicated to the project over the course of the decade.Īs one of the SKAO founding members, Australia has played a vital role in progressing the project that will soon become one of the country's most important pieces of scientific infrastructure. Representatives of national bodies in Japan and South Korea complement the select list of Observers in the SKAO Council. Among these are countries that took part in the design phase of the SKA such as Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and whose future accession to SKAO is expected in the coming weeks and months, once their national processes have been completed. The Council itself is composed of representatives from the Observatory’s Member States, as well as Observer countries aspiring to join SKAO. This wasn’t just a regular meeting or snap announcement - last week’s decision has taken over three decades of dedication, conversation, diplomacy and funding to arrive at, carrying enormous responsibility and commitment from nations that form part of the special council of the SKAO.Īs announced by the SKAO earlier this month, the first SKAO Council meeting follows the signature of the SKA treaty, formally known as the Convention establishing the SKA Observatory, on 12 March 2019 in Rome, and its subsequent ratification by Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom and entry into force on 15 January 2021, marking the official birth date of the observatory. It marked a significant moment in the project’s timeline - an official “GO!” for the mammoth international project, which aims to be operational and gazing upon the cosmos in unrivalled resolution, in about a decade from now. So grand, ambitious and awe-inspiring is the SKA, it will change the way that everyday Australians consider astronomy and space science from something that other countries do with their big space agencies, to something that we do here in our own country, leading from a global perspective.Įarlier this month the world’s second intergovernmental organisation (IGO) dedicated to astronomy was launched at the Jodrell Bank UNESCO World Heritage site in the United Kingdom, ushering in the new Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) - and heralding an ambitiously exciting future for all fields across astrophysics. It will be the first time that our country will host a mega-science project in our backyard. One major science project will soon re-shape the future of how young Australians start to perceive astronomy, and our role on the global stage, with the development of what will become the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
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