Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope #2

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Profile Byron Leigh Hatch @ team Carl Sagan
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Message 1521600 - Posted: 27 May 2014, 15:38:46 UTC

Hello fellow SETI@home crunchers

What do you think about the following: ???

Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope

The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — 50 light years away.

something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

The $2.1-billion SKA radio telescope will be made up of some 3,000 dishes, each 15 meters in diameter. The project will try to answer big questions about the early universe: how the first elements heavier than helium formed, for example, and how the first galaxies coalesced. The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds—something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

The SKA super computer will perform - 10 to the 18th power - which = Just added 18 zeroes so it would be:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second
equivalent to the number of stars in three million Milky Way galaxies
in order to process all the data that the SKA will produce.
See this web page for Facts and figures about the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope:

for the: Two Billion Dollar Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope

The project timeline

    1991 Concept
    2006 Short listing of suitable sites
    2008-12 Telescope system design and cost
    2011 Establish SKA organisation as a legal entity
    2012 Site selection
    2013-15 Detailed design and pre-construction phase
    2016-19 Phase 1 construction
    2018-23 Phase 2 construction
    2020 Full science operations with Phase 1
    2024 Full science operations with Phase 2



Facts and figures

    The SKA central computer will have the processing power of about 1 billion PCs.
    The SKA will use enough optical fibre to wrap twice around the Earth!
    The dishes of the SKA will produce 10 times the global internet traffic.
    The aperture arrays in the SKA could produce more than 100 times the global internet traffic.
    The SKA will generate enough raw data to fill 15 million 64 GB iPods every day!
    The SKA super computer will perform 1018 operations per second – equivalent to the number of stars in three million Milky Way galaxies
    in order to process all the data that the SKA will produce.
    The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect an airport radar on a planet 50 light years away.



The SKA will contain thousands of antennas with a combined collecting area of about one square kilometre (that’s 1,000,000 square metres!). .

Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope

https://www.skatelescope.org/

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Message 1521831 - Posted: 28 May 2014, 7:15:24 UTC - in response to Message 1521600.  

Very interesting page. Thanks, Byron!
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Message 1521947 - Posted: 28 May 2014, 15:27:44 UTC - in response to Message 1521831.  
Last modified: 28 May 2014, 15:34:18 UTC

This part is most interesting: https://www.skatelescope.org/science/cradle-life/


What about signals from a technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisation? The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect signals comparable in strength to television transmitters operating on planets around the closest stars to the Sun out to dozens of light years. The SKA will be able to search for these “leakage” signals from other civilisations for the first time.

The SKA’s sensitivity will allow it to expand the volume of the Galaxy that can be searched for intentional beacons by a factor of 1000, using a wider range of frequencies than attempted before. The detection of such extraterrestrial signals would forever change the perception of humanity in the Universe.
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Message 1522370 - Posted: 29 May 2014, 12:11:16 UTC

Here is a view on computing requirements for SKA:
SKA and the Cloud
Tullio
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Message 1522410 - Posted: 29 May 2014, 15:53:53 UTC

How does the new and improved VLA compare? It also looks like they have both hemispheres covered now.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1522442 - Posted: 29 May 2014, 16:46:17 UTC - in response to Message 1522410.  

Don't know much about the VLA. I know that both Italian radiotelescopes, the 32 meters antenna at Noto, Sicily, and the new 64 meters Sardinia in Sardinia are part of a VLB Interferometer with antennae in South Africa and Japan.
Tullio
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Message 1522569 - Posted: 30 May 2014, 1:50:25 UTC - in response to Message 1522442.  

... part of a VLB Interferometer with antennae in South Africa and Japan.

OK... So that is world-wide.


Next is to time interface with a space-borne telescope for an even more extreme very wide base interferometer...

Keep searchin',
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Message 1522589 - Posted: 30 May 2014, 4:10:29 UTC - in response to Message 1522569.  

The Russian have a space radiotelescope. I hope that ESA or Italian Space Agency can cooperate with them.
Tullio
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Message 1529185 - Posted: 17 Jun 2014, 23:04:17 UTC
Last modified: 17 Jun 2014, 23:08:51 UTC

Does this mean that SETI will not be getting the SKA data to analyze? I was hoping that it would, since it seems to be the first radio telescope to have any real chance at finding intelligent signals from other planet. (On the other hand, if they can do it themselves, then I can devote my PC to other purposes.)
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Message 1529346 - Posted: 18 Jun 2014, 7:01:04 UTC

Antenna number 66 in being installed at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile at 5000 meters height. It is the most powerful radiotelescope in the world but I doubt it will be used for a SETI search.
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Message 1529419 - Posted: 18 Jun 2014, 12:38:33 UTC - in response to Message 1529346.  

va bene
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Message 1533994 - Posted: 30 Jun 2014, 13:38:11 UTC

Cradle of Life

Searching for life and planets

Are we alone in the Universe? Whether there is life on other words is a fundamental issue in astronomy and biology, and an important question for humankind.

When you mention extra-terrestrial life, most people think of little green men and alien invasions, but the science of looking for life on other worlds is gathering real momentum, such as through discoveries of complex organic molecules in comets, nebula and interstellar space, which form some of the building blocks for life as we know it.

The range of complexity in these organic molecules is vast, and it’s leading scientists to speculate more and more that life could be common in planets within the habitable zones around stars.

The SKA will be able to detect extremely weak extraterrestrial radio signals if they were to exist, greatly expanding on the capabilities of projects like SETI.

Astrobiologists will use the SKA to search for amino acids, the building blocks of life, by identifying their spectral signatures at specific frequencies.

Read more here:

https://www.skatelescope.org/science/cradle-life/
https://www.skatelescope.org/science/cradle-life/
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Message 1559879 - Posted: 21 Aug 2014, 4:53:46 UTC

21 August 2014

a little update on the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope:

I can't wait for this Radio Telescope to be come fully operational :)

I wish more countries would join the SKA ????????????????????????????

As of January 2014 , the members Countries of the SKA Organisation are:

  • Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
  • Canada: National Research Council
  • China: National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
  • New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
  • South Africa: National Research Foundation
  • Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
  • The Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
  • United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council


The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — 50 light years away.

something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

The $2.1-billion SKA radio telescope will be made up of some 3,000 dishes, each 15 meters in diameter. The project will try to answer big questions about the early universe: how the first elements heavier than helium formed, for example, and how the first galaxies coalesced. The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds—something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

The SKA super computer will perform - 10 to the 18th power - which = Just added 18 zeroes so it would be: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second equivalent to the number of stars in three million Milky Way galaxies in order to process all the data that the SKA will produce. See this web page for Facts and figures about the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope:

Two Billion Dollar Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope

The project timeline:


  • 1991 Concept
  • 2006 Short listing of suitable sites
  • 2008-12 Telescope system design and cost
  • 2011 Establish SKA organisation as a legal entity
  • 2012 Site selection
  • 2013-15 Detailed design and pre-construction phase
  • 2016-19 Phase 1 construction
  • 2018-23 Phase 2 construction
  • 2020 Full science operations with Phase 1
  • 2024 Full science operations with Phase 2


Facts and figures:


  • The SKA central computer will have the processing power of about 1 billion PCs.
  • The SKA will use enough optical fibre to wrap twice around the Earth!
  • The dishes of the SKA will produce 10 times the global internet traffic.
  • The aperture arrays in the SKA could produce more than 100 times the global internet traffic.
  • The SKA will generate enough raw data to fill 15 million 64 GB iPods every day!
  • The SKA super computer will perform - 10 to the 18th power - which = Just added 18 zeroes so it would be: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second
  • in order to process all the data that the SKA will produce.
  • The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect an airport radar on a planet 50 light years away.
  • The SKA will contain thousands of antennas with a combined collecting area of about one square kilometre (that’s 1,000,000 square metres!)


Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope

copy and paste:


Preliminary tests on new ASKAP receiver show promising results:

The first results from ground-based system tests on the full-size second generation (Mk II) phased array feed (PAF) receiver for the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope ASKAP have indicated impressive system temperature performance.

The preliminary ‘ground-based’ aperture array tests were performed with the new Mk II prototype PAF receiver, and associated digital receivers and beamformers, on site at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, the Australian SKA site.

These preliminary results are very encouraging and indicate that the Mk II PAF performs much better than the first generation PAFs already deployed on the first six ASKAP antennas at the MRO, which are currently being used for engineering commissioning.

Read the full release on CSIRO ATNF’s website:

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/news_ade_18082014.html


Read more information about the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope here:

https://www.skatelescope.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array
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Message 1559913 - Posted: 21 Aug 2014, 7:17:19 UTC

And how many people to operate it?
Tullio
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Message 1559957 - Posted: 21 Aug 2014, 10:32:35 UTC

Thanx for the update Byron:)
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Message 1559987 - Posted: 21 Aug 2014, 13:32:20 UTC
Last modified: 21 Aug 2014, 13:35:25 UTC

The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — 50 light years away.


There are not many stars within 50 light-years. Perhaps about 150. There are more red dwarfs also. I suspect that we would be concentrating on these stars with the Kepler-like survey and also all of the listening efforts as well.

That is why I have often postulated that we are more likely to receive a high power, one time, focused beacon from further out in the Galaxy. I think that we should have detected TV from this distance by now if it existed.
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Message 1560015 - Posted: 21 Aug 2014, 15:00:23 UTC

some more information from SKA copy and paste :)


Cradle of Life

The SKA will be able to detect extremely weak extraterrestrial radio signals if they were to exist, greatly expanding on the capabilities of projects like SETI

The SKA’s sensitivity will allow it to expand the volume of the Galaxy that can be searched for intentional beacons by a factor of 1000, using a wider range of frequencies than attempted before. The detection of such extraterrestrial signals would forever change the perception of humanity in the Universe.

Are we alone in the Universe? Whether there is life on other words is a fundamental issue in astronomy and biology, and an important question for humankind.

When you mention extra-terrestrial life, most people think of little green men and alien invasions, but the science of looking for life on other worlds is gathering real momentum, such as through discoveries of complex organic molecules in comets, nebula and interstellar space, which form some of the building blocks for life as we know it.

The range of complexity in these organic molecules is vast, and it’s leading scientists to speculate more and more that life could be common in planets within the habitable zones around stars.

The SKA will be able to detect extremely weak extraterrestrial radio signals if they were to exist, greatly expanding on the capabilities of projects like SETI.

Astrobiologists will use the SKA to search for amino acids, the building blocks of life, by identifying their spectral signatures at specific frequencies.

The dusty discs that form around young stars are the sites where planets are made. The birth of a planet is thought to take a million years or more – much longer than a human lifetime – and it isn’t possible to watch an individual planet appear. Instead, the discs around many young stars must be observed in order to piece together the different parts of the formation process. Fortunately there are hundreds of these young stars within about 500 light years of the Sun, and many thousands more at greater distances.

If placed at 500 light years distance, our own Solar System would be about 1 arcsecond across – roughly equivalent to a thumb-tack seen from a mile away – so observations at high angular resolution are very important.

At radio wavelengths, such resolution is achieved by combining the signals from widely separated antennas.

In the SKA, the antennas will be thousand of kilometres apart, enabling us to probe the “habitable zone” of Sun-like protostars, the region where Earth-like planets or the moons of gas giants are most likely to have environments favourable for the development of life.

Recent discoveries have shown that gas giant planets (similar to Jupiter) are common around other stars like the Sun. Though there is no conclusive evidence yet for potentially habitable, small, rocky planets like Earth, careful observations with more sensitive telescopes have detected a number of candidate terrestrial-like planets, larger than Earth. Many scientists believe these habitable worlds, in the so called “Goldilocks zone” where conditions are just right for life, must exist, and it’s only a matter of time before they are detected, either by inferred observations or potentially directly.

Remote sensing of young stars shows they are surrounded by dusty discs which contain the materials needed to form Earth-like planets. By observing the process of planet building, the SKA will tell us how Earth-like planets are formed.

Although planets forming in the habitable zone of Sun-like protostars are currently far too small to be detected directly, the dust from which they form has a lot of surface area that intercepts starlight and converts the energy into heat which can be detected at short radio wavelengths.

The SKA will image the thermal emission from dust in the habitable zone in unprecedented detail. In particular, the SKA will show where dust evolves from micron-sized insterstellar particles to centimetre-sized and larger “pebbles”, the first step in assembling Earth-like planets.

Observations show that gas giant planets are surprisingly common in the habitable zone around other stars, unlike in our Solar System. This surprising discovery raises many questions:

  • What accounts for the diversity in planetary systems?
  • Are terrestrial planets common in the habitable zone?
  • Do gas giant planets form in the inner disk or do they migrate there?
  • What are the implications for Earth-like planets?


The SKA will image features in discs related to planet formation. The presence of giant protoplanets can open up nearly empty gaps in the disc material, revealing their presence, and they may also drive large-scale spiral waves through the disc.

Because orbital times in the inner disc are short, just a few years, observations made over time can track the evolution of these features. Giant planets may form by the slow growth of dust grains into large rocks that capture gas, or by rapid gravitational instabilities that disrupt the surrounding disc. The SKA will discern which mechanisms are active, and where in the disc they occur, which will reveal the impact of newborn giant planets on their Earth-like counterparts. When viewed from afar, the signatures of forming planets imprinted on circumstellar dust may be the most conspicuous evidence of their presence.

The gaps in the dust clouds are much easier to detect than the planets themselves because of their much larger surface area. It’s akin to seeing the wake of a boat from an airplane when the boat itself is too small to be visible. The SKA may be the only instrument capable of imaging the inner regions of discs where Earth-like planets form.

What about signals from a technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisation? The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect signals comparable in strength to television transmitters
operating on planets around the closest stars to the Sun out to dozens of light years. The SKA will be able to search for these “leakage” signals from other civilisations for the first time.

The SKA’s sensitivity will allow it to expand the volume of the Galaxy that can be searched for intentional beacons by a factor of 1000, using a wider range of frequencies than attempted before. The detection of such extraterrestrial signals would forever change the perception of humanity in the Universe.

The search is on, and the SKA will be at the forefront of one of human kinds greatest quests.

Some interesting facts:

More than a thousand exoplanets are now known to exist, with more and more being discovered every day.
Direct optical imaging of exoplanets was first achieved in the early 21st Century

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Message 1560374 - Posted: 22 Aug 2014, 0:59:11 UTC - in response to Message 1559987.  
Last modified: 22 Aug 2014, 1:00:35 UTC

The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds — 50 light years away.


There are not many stars within 50 light-years. Perhaps about 150. There are more red dwarfs also. I suspect that we would be concentrating on these stars with the Kepler-like survey and also all of the listening efforts as well.

That is why I have often postulated that we are more likely to receive a high power, one time, focused beacon from further out in the Galaxy. I think that we should have detected TV from this distance by now if it existed.

Well...

Our present searches are not looking for ET-TV... And in any case, our old-style TV will only last a fleetingly brief time. After a mere 50 years, we are already going spread-spectrum digital or all-cable 'internet' online delivery, all of which cannot be picked up far out in space.

So... Any "ET" listening to our TV will get to see "I Love Lucy" and then lose the plot soon after the "Friends" and "Big Bang" TV series!


However...

There will always be radar and especially the interplanetary radar that will remain in use at very high pulse powers. Although intermittent, they should be strong enough to be picked up way beyond just 50 light years away...


Keep searchin',
Martin
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Message 1560375 - Posted: 22 Aug 2014, 1:03:48 UTC - in response to Message 1560015.  

...
What about signals from a technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisation? The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect signals comparable in strength to television transmitters
operating on planets around the closest stars to the Sun out to dozens of light years. The SKA will be able to search for these “leakage” signals from other civilisations for the first time.

The SKA’s sensitivity will allow it to expand the volume of the Galaxy that can be searched for intentional beacons by a factor of 1000, using a wider range of frequencies than attempted before. The detection of such extraterrestrial signals would forever change the perception of humanity in the Universe.

...

Byron,

Thanks for the quotes and the update.

Hopefully, Boinc and s@h will be able to tap into some of the SKA reception, and hopefully soon even before the full array is finished!


Keep searchin',
Martin
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Message 1560455 - Posted: 22 Aug 2014, 5:56:41 UTC

It is not sufficient to build a new telescope. You must also find a way of paying the salaries of the people who operate it, and there is the rub, as the history of the Allen Telescope Array and the new 64 meters "Sardinia" radio telescope in Italy shows.
Tullio
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