New missions for radio astronomy

Anticipation has been building within the international astronomy community over the $1.8 billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, the next-generation radio telescope that will give astronomers unprecedented insights into the formation of the early Universe – including the emergence of the first stars, galaxies and other structures – and answer fundamental questions in physics and cosmology.

At the same time, our Faculty of Science and Engineering has been building its expertise in radio astronomy. The research expansion program has enabled us to recruit world-renowned radio astronomer Professor Steven Tingay, a specialist in Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). VLBI techniques involve an array of telescopes linked in order to detect exceptionally weak radio signals from space and produce high-resolution images.

VLBI-style techniques will be a critical component of the SKA project that will link thousands of radio antennae across 3000km, enabling astronomers to observe large tracts of the sky with an instrument up to 100 times as sensitive as current technology. Design is one of the many technical challenges of the project, and Tingay is currently in Europe collaborating with astronomy institutes in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy on aspects of the SKA design. On his return to Australia he will focus on the further development of VLBI techniques, including software correlators for the SKA, and expand our expertise in this area.

‘Joining Curtin was a unique opportunity to build on my previous research and to play a significant role in Australia’s SKA efforts,’ Tingay said. ‘Helping Australia secure the SKA is one of my key goals, and expanding our research and technical expertise here in W.A. will help achieve this.’

In line with this, Professor Peter Hall has been appointed as Professor of Radio Astronomy. Currently based at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility in Sydney, Hall was, until recently, the International Project Engineer for the SKA project, responsible for many technical and policy developments in the endeavour, and is an integral part of the evolution of the SKA instrument’s design and optimisation.

A radio-quiet zone in Western Australia’s mid-west is one of two possible SKA sites short-listed (the other is in Southern Africa) by an international committee which is expected to deliver a decision in 2010. Both countries are now developing testbed technologies, and our teams are directly involved in major pathfinder projects at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO).

The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) development being deployed by CSIRO will use a concentration of innovative telescopes in Western Australia as a powerful demonstration of wide-field radio astronomy and SKA technology, to address areas of important science for the SKA. The telescope will also be used with existing and new telescopes on the east coast and in New Zealand to demonstrate these long baseline techniques.

In addition to the Australian SKA Pathfinder is the development of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) project led by the Haystack Observatory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Murchison Widefield Array will be a next-generation telescope comprising an array of radio tiles observing in a range differing from the Australian SKA Pathfinder instrument, in order to provide the most complete SKA pathfinder process. A sample panel comprising eight aperture array telescopes was assembled at Curtin in November 2007, as a dry run for the international team that will soon begin erecting the entire array over the 1.5km Murchison site.

‘Australia is at the fore of radio astronomy. These two mid-west pathfinder projects are momentous not only because they are vital testbeds for the SKA, but they are also continuing an exciting area of Australian science and technology excellence,’ Tingay said.

You can find this and other research-related articles in the latest issue of R&D Now.

The SKA project will enable astronomers to observe large tracts of the sky with an instrument up to 100 times as sensitive as current technology.