Context: India is set to get full member status to the Square Kilometer Array. Indian Cabinet has approved Rs 1,250 crore to support the multinational Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, whose telescope arrays or groups of telescopes will be built in Australia and South Africa.
About Square Kilometre Array Project
- SKA is a group of radio telescopes being built in South Africa and Australia in two phases. The first phase is expected to begin operations by 2029.
- The radio telescopes will be operating in two different ranges of radio frequency.
- The South-African array will scan for mid-frequency signals, between 350 MHz and 15.4 GHz.
- The Australian telescope will work in the low-frequency range of 50-350 MHz.
- Once constructed, the SKA will be the most powerful radio telescope ever built, capable of detecting faint radio signals from extreme distances, with eventually over a square kilometre (one million square metres) of collecting area.
Objectives
- SKA will observe and map galaxies at the edge of the observable universe and the Milky Way in great detail. It will study magnetism and radiation from distant galaxies and map them as well.
- Since the Milky Way galaxy’s view is better from the Southern Hemisphere, the arrays are being constructed there.
- Survey data from SKA observation will:
- Provide deep insights about formation and evolution of our galaxy.
- Detect and understand the role of dark matter and dark energy in the universe.
- Aid in the search for life beyond the Earth by looking for planets that orbit stars in habitable zones and studying their atmosphere for organic compounds, as a part of a science programme called Cradle of Life.
Collaborative efforts
- It will also be one of the world’s largest collaborative research projects, involving thousands of researchers and the world’s fastest supercomputers.
- Square Kilometre Array Observatory: Founded in 2019, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) has 16 consortium members — Australia, South Africa, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy. Headquarters: Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK.
- The Indian research partner for the SKA project is Pune’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). India’s main contribution to the SKA is in the development, and operation, of the Telescope Manager element, the “neural network” or the software that will make the telescope work.
- To improve the accuracy of triangulation of data and its resolution, the project will include additional dishes in the future (phase 2) in neighbouring African countries — Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia.
Significance for India:
- SKA offers opportunities similar to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or the ITER, which too are located on foreign soil but have brought rich dividends to the Indian scientific community.
- A full member status would provide India preferential access to the SKA facilities. Most existing telescopes operate under an open-use policy which allows research groups from any country to get time on the facility through competitive bidding by making a scientific case.
- Member countries will get preferential allocation of time on the radio telescope, roughly in proportion to their contribution to the project, and only limited time slots would be available through competitive bidding.
- The Indian participation in SKA led by a consortium of more than 20 academic and research institutes (with NCRA-TIFR as the nodal institute).
- During the design phase of the SKA (2014-2020), India has contributed actively to the project, with a lead role in the successful design of the complex Telescope Manager system.
- India’s membership in SKAO will enable the large-scale participation of Indian industry not only for fulfilling our commitments towards in-kind contributions but also in other open tenders that may be floated by the SKAO.
- Participation in this project will open up possibilities for development of niche skills in Indian industry and research organizations in different areas of next generation technologies, such as modern antenna design, sophisticated cryogenic receiver systems, and high volume optical fibre data transport technology etc.