Experts in Malta to discuss SKA Project

A one-week event focusing on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world's largest radio telescope being built in South Africa and western Australia, will be held on July 4-10 at the University of Malta Valletta campus.

Organized by the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) of the University of Malta, the event will enable 75 computer scientists, engineers and astronomers to discuss the science data processing of the radio telescope.

Kristian Zarb Adami, ISSA director and astrophysicist, said in a statement that the SKA has been built to answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. He said,"this meeting is laying the foundation of the software design that will truly transform the SKA from an ordinary radio telescope to a flexible cutting-edge instrument capable of searching the radio sky quicker than ever before."

The SKA project is an international effort to build the world's largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square km of collecting area. The scale of the SKA represents a huge leap forward in both engineering and research, the development towards building and delivering a unique instrument, with the detailed design and preparation now well under way.

Both South Africa's Karoo region and Western Australia's Murchison Shire are chosen as co-hosting locations for many scientific and technical reasons, from the atmospherics above the desert sites, through to the radio quietness, which comes from being some of the most remote locations on Earth.

Around 100 organisations are participating in the design and development of the SKA. Malta is an observer on the SKA Board. It is primarily working on developing software, control and management systems for the consortia. Endit