The Ministry of Science and Innovation has earmarked 2.5 million euros for the international Square Kilometre Array radiotelescope

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will enable progress to be made in the search for signs of life in the galaxy and in the observation of pulsars, black holes and gravitational waves. The technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project is carried out by the Institute de Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC)

 

25/05/2022

The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday the agreements by which the Ministry of Science and Innovation will allocate 2.5 million euros to the international radiotelescope Square Kilometre Array (SKA), of which 0.7 million euros will come from the European funds of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and will be devoted to the development of its instrumentation.

The SKA radiotelescope will consist of hundreds of thousands of antennas of different types, spread over different locations, ranging from the Karoo Desert in South Africa, which will host the core of high and medium frequency dishes, to the Murchison Shire in Australia, which will host the low frequency antennas.

The SKA will be thousands of times faster at observing the sky than the best radioastronomy facilities today and will enable astronomers to make sky observations in great detail, exceeding the image resolution quality of the Hubble space telescope by several orders of magnitude.

In this way, the SKA radio telescope will make ground-breaking contributions to astrophysics, astrobiology, fundamental physics, geophysics and geodesy. Among other functionalities, it will enable progress to be made in the search for signs of life in the galaxy and the observation of pulsars, black holes and gravitational waves.

Spain's participation in SKA

Our country has been participating in SKA since 2011 and has expressed its interest in participating as a full partner in the SKA observatory which, under the legal form of an international body, will be the entity responsible for carrying out the construction of the world's largest radiotelescope.

Part of the amount approved on Tuesday will be recognised by SKA as part of the agreed contribution with which Spain will become a full member.

The technical coordination of the Spanish participation in the project is the responsibility of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), which belongs to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council), an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, whose main role is to organise the national scientific community for its participation in the project.

At present, astrophysicists from Spain are involved in almost all the science working teams of the SKA, as well as in other groups, such as the energy supply options or the coordination of the regional centres. In addition, a representative of the CDTI has been appointed to encourage Spanish industrial participation in SKA developments.

 

 

Contact: 

Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)
Unidad de Divulgación y Comunicación
Silbia López de Lacalle - sll[arroba]iaa.es - 958230676
https://www.iaa.csic.es
https://divulgacion.iaa.csic.es