Deep in the Australian outback, a massive science project is taking shape—a “time machine” that might help us find aliens. It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but don’t worry, it’s not just a fancy plot twist!
Great couple of days in the Murchison building the @SKAO Low test array at the @mwatelescope site. Lots of lessons for when we deploy the full telescope – all 131,072 antennas! pic.twitter.com/B5vB7eTIb9
— Sarah Pearce (@spacecricket) May 5, 2023
Dr. Sarah Pearce, the Telescope Director of SKA-Low, explains, “What we’re building here is like a time machine because it lets us peek back at the early universe and see how it has changed.” We’re talking about 300 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies started to shine—basically, the universe’s first Instagram post!
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SKA-Low is a giant radio telescope made up of 131,072 antennas shaped like Christmas trees. Yes, you heard that right—Christmas trees! It’s expected to be fully operational by the end of this decade. Plus, it will test Einstein’s theory of general relativity by studying gravity around black holes. And if that’s not enough, Dr. Pearce says this super-sensitive telescope might even pick up signals from intelligent life in other star systems. Who knows, maybe we’ll finally hear from E.T.!
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The construction is set to cost over $2 billion and will have 512 stations, each with 256 antennas, all set to scan the sky. A bunch of powerful computers will handle the data—because who doesn’t need a little help from technology? It’s estimated that SKA-Low will be 1,000 times more sensitive than the telescope that captured the first radio picture of the universe.
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