| Institution: | 1.Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Alan Turing Building, School of Physics & Astronomy,The University of Manchester,Manchester,UK;2.CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science,Australia Telescope National Facility,Epping,Australia;3.Grupo de Radio Astronomia, Basic Sciences & Enabling Technologies, Instituto de Telecomunica??es,Campus Universitario de Santiago,Aveiro,Portugal;4.Persistent Systems Limited, Pune,Maharashtra,India;5.Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE),Dwingeloo,The Netherlands;6.National Physical Laboratory,Teddington, Middlesex,UK;7.STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,Harwell Campus,UK;8.SKA South Africa,Pinelands,South Africa;9.Department of Physics,Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University,Port Elizabeth,South Africa;10.School of Physics,The University of Western Australia,Perth,Australia;11.STFC,Daresbury Laboratory,Warrington, Cheshire,UK;12.Joint Institute for Measurement Science, The state key lab of precision Measurement Technology and Instrument, Department of Precision Instruments,Tsinghua University,Beijing,China;13.National Centre for Radio Astrophysics,Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,Pune, Maharashtra,India;14.South African National Research Network,CSIR Meraka Institute,Pretoria,South Africa;15.GéANT,Cambridge,UK;16.Tata Consultancy Services,Mumbia, Maharashtra,India;17.AARNet,North Ryde,Australia |
| Abstract: | The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. It will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of theUniverse, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. This project envisages the construction of 133 15-m antennas in South Africa and 131072 log-periodic antennas in Australia, together with the associated infrastructure in the two desert sites. In addition, the SKA is an exemplar Big Data project, with data rates of over 10 Tbps being transported from the telescope to HPC/HTC facilities. |
