An article featured in The Western Australian yesterday outlines the region’s hopes for winning the Square Kilometre Array deepspace telescope bid, and getting the computer that goes along with it
The backers of the $3 billion Square Kilometre Array deepspace telescope believe the project offers a once-in-a-generation boost to high-tech industries in WA [Western Australia] and could transform a wide range of businesses.
Science Minister Troy Buswell said the Government was doing everything it could to secure the project for WA. The WA bid was better than that of its South African rival, he said.
…At the telescope’s planned headquarters in Murchison shire, about 50,000sqkm that is home to only 16,000 people, would be a supercomputer 1000 times more powerful than the fastest machine working today.
Professor Quinn said delivering such a powerful machine in time for the telescope’s scheduled 2020 completion date would pose a significant challenge but would create many jobs.
According to the Wikipedia, the KSA is headed for the southern hemisphere and likely will land in either Australia or South Africa
With receiving stations extending out to distance of 3,000 km from a concentrated central core, it will continue radio astronomy’s tradition of providing the highest resolution images in all astronomy. The SKA will be built either in South Africa or Australia, both in the southern hemisphere, where the view of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is best and radio interference least. With a budget of €1.5 billion, construction of the SKA is scheduled to begin in 2012 for initial observations by 2016 and full operation by 2020.
Will we be able to see the Big Bang with this telescope?