Construction on the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), began this week and is expected to be completed by 2028. The SKA, to be built in Australia and Africa, will collect radio signals from celestial objects and promise to provide clues to some of the most mysterious questions in astronomy, such as the nature of dark matter and how galaxies form. The giant telescope was originally envisioned to consist of two facilities, one in Australia and the other in South Africa, called SKA-Low and SKA-Mid. The distance between the antennas, and their sheer number, means that the telescope array will pick up radio signals with unprecedented sensitivity. SKA-Low will detect frequencies from 50MHz-350MHz, while SKA-Mid will detect frequencies from 350MHz-15.4GHz. The SKA will be built in stages, with the first phase costing 1.3 billion euros and expected to be completed in 2028, with a further 700 million euros earmarked for operating the telescope over the next decade. Ultimately the SKA aims to have thousands of antennas in South Africa and African partner countries, and 1 million antennas in Australia, with a total collection area of 1 square kilometer.
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