Today’s Solutions: March 28, 2024

Every day, we come closer to answering the essential questions that arise from looking up at the sky. How did we come to be? What’s holding all of this together? Are we alone? Astrophysicists and astronomers need data in great volume and detail to find the answers to these questions, and a new tool is in development that will enable them better than ever before. 

A group of UK researchers is building a software mind to unite international facilities into the world’s largest radio telescope. 

The Square Kilometer Array

The UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) labs and universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester are working together on software to unite many dishes and antennas into a giant observational program, called the Square Kilometer Array. 

This will comprise 197 dishes and 130,000 antennas across South Africa and Australia. The goal is to develop software that will unite all of these devices and facilities, enabling them to work in perfect unison. As you can imagine, it is an incredible computational undertaking. 

“We’re talking something like 600 petabytes (600 million gigabytes) per year of data coming out of the SKA, to be delivered to astronomers worldwide,” Chris Pearson, astronomy group leader at RAL Space, told BBC News. “So, it’s a scaling problem, it’s a processing problem, it’s a data transfer problem.”

Big struggle, big gains

The Square Kilometer Array will afford astrophysicists and astronomers detail and data like never before. Its resolution and sensitivity at radio wavelengths combined with massive computing power will allow researchers to delve deeper into research on the most essential questions of the universe. 

What is dark energy?” How were the first stars born in the early universe? And are we alone? The Square Kilometer Array will be sensitive enough to pick up any transmissions from or between extra-terrestrials. 

The UK Government has already allocated £15 million to the project through the STFC, and developers have the go-ahead to begin developing the software for the SKA. 

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Rowing against the current: Botswana’s women safari guides inspire and empower

In the calm of Botswana's Okavango Delta, where the morning sun creates a golden glow on the water's surface, an amazing metamorphosis is occurring. ...

Read More

The future of healing: 3D printing skin directly onto open wounds

Pennsylvania State University researchers achieved a major medical science breakthrough by being the first team ever to 3D print real human skin tissue directly ...

Read More

These solar-powered barges can scoop up 50 tons of plastic from rivers each day

While removing the plastic waste that currently contaminates the ocean today will be crucial for protecting marine ecosystems, it is arguably more important that ...

Read More

A bold step towards climate action and job creation: The American Climate Corps

The White House announced the creation of the American Climate Corps, a breakthrough program that will transform the climate action landscape. This ambitious project ...

Read More