After decades of planning and negotiations, the construction of the largest radio telescope in the world has begun in the outback of Western Australia. A total of 14 countries are involved in the billion-euro "Square Kilometre Array" (SKA) project, including Germany and Switzerland. In the Murchison Shire region, 560 kilometres north of Perth, more than 130,000 antennas will be built in a first phase, which will later be interconnected with radio telescopes in South Africa's semi-desert Karoo. Both regions are very sparsely populated, so that there would be hardly any disturbing influences in the observation of space.
With the help of the instrument, some of the most puzzling phenomena in space should be researched in the future - such as dark matter, the development of galaxies and the extent of the universe. The antennas in Western Australia, whose appearance is a little reminiscent of Christmas trees, will search the sky in the range between 50 and 350 megahertz, while another 197 parabolic antennas in South Africa are operated between 350 Megahertz and 14 gigahertz. So they are frequency ranges that are invisible to the human eye. Because of its extreme sensitivity, the SKA will be able to catch radio signals at a huge distance - and thus possibly also give an answer to the question of extraterrestrial life.
Astronomers also expect new knowledge about the beginning of the universe. For example, the Australian newspaper "The Age", scientists "hope to be able to examine the› cosmic dawn of the universe with the immensely powerful telescope, a period of around 100 million and one billion years after the Big Bang as the first Stars awakened to life and galaxies emerged.
"Square Kilometer Array" is one of the most important science projects of this century. The first phase of the building of the antennas is expected to be completed in 2028. In further phases, hundreds of thousands of other antennas in Australia and thousands of bowls are to be added in South Africa - a total of over an area of one square kilometer, where the name of the project also stems from. The first scientific observations will be able to start in four to five years.
"The SKA telescopes will be sensitive enough to detect an airport radar on a planet orbiting a star ten light-years away," said SKA Director Sarah Pearce.
