Square Kilometre Array

🎥 What do Team SKA astronomers find most exciting about the SKA? Watch Dr. Rachael Ainsworth of The University of Manchester Dr. Bi-Qing For of ICRAR @universitywa & Dr. Tessa Vernstrom of CSIRO speak about global collaboration, tech innovations & looking back in time with the SKA, on the sidelines of #SKAscicon19 earlier this month!

Job alert! We're looking for an Operations Scientist to join our international team at SKA Global Headquarters in the UK! You'll provide support and advice on scientific commissioning planning for the SKA Observatory, and support the use of the SKA in the global VLBI network. Applications close on 29 April - take a look at all the details on our jobs site: http://skatel.org/1le1h

Our congratulations to Bernie Fanaroff on being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society! Bernie was director of SKA South Africa and led the development of the SKA precursor telescope MeerKAT from 2003 until 2015. He has been a key driver behind the SKA in South Africa!
Department of Science and Technology
#RSFellows

What's the SKA link to the amazing #EHTblackhole image revealed last week? It was made possible thanks to VLBI, a technique the SKA will also use! One of our own astronomers, SKA System Scientist Dr. Robert Laing, was also involved in the results - read more on our website:

🎥 <1min video: “Pushing the technological limits”. Watch Dr. Tessa Vernstrom of CSIRO discuss what she finds most exciting about the SKA, finding creative solutions to huge data challenges! #SKAscicon19

🎥 <1min: Listen to Dr. Tessa Vernstrom, a Bolton Fellow at CSIRO, talking about her research on the faint and distant extragalactic sky! Tessa has been at #SKAscicon19 in Cheshire this week to talk about detecting cosmic magnetic fields.

🎥 Amazed by the #EHTblackhole image unveiled yesterday? Watch SKA scientists Dr. Robert Laing, who co-authored two of the papers, and VLBI expert Cristina Garcia Miro discussing how it was done and how the SKA will contribute to observations in the future! We asked them to explain what exactly the event horizon is, why so many telescopes were needed to observe it, and what this all means for the field of astronomy. Take a look!

In case you missed it: yesterday marked a huge moment for astronomy & science worldwide as the first ever image of a black hole was revealed using 8 radio telescopes distributed around the world! Our congratulations to everyone involved!
At SKA we understand the value of such large international collaborations. We are very proud that our very own System Scientist Dr. Robert Laing was one of the 200 scientists involved and we are very excited about the possibilities of using SKA for such collaborative observations in the future! 🤩

🎥<1min video: Watch Dr. Bi-Qing For of ICRAR-The University of Western Australia explaining how the SKA’s unrivalled resolution and sensitivity will enable us to look further back in time than ever before to discover how galaxies evolved! She is one of 300 scientists at #SKAscicon19 discussing some of the exciting new science that will be possible in the SKA era!

🎥<1min video: Listen to Dr. Bi-Qing For of ICRAR The University of Western Australia talking about her research interests! She's at #SKAscicon19 this week presenting early science with WALLABY, one of the surveys being run by SKA-precursor telescope ASKAP!

🎥<1min video: What do you find most exciting about the SKA project? We asked Dr. Rachael Ainsworth, who’s at the SKA Science Meeting this week, to tell us! Rachael is a research associate and open science champion based with our partners @jodrellbankobservatory @TheUniversityofManchester, and for her the answer is collaboration and spin-offs - check out the video! #SKAscicon19

🎥<1min video: Here at the SKA Science Meeting there are lots of discussions on the work that's under way to prepare for the SKA using precursor & pathfinder telescopes around the world. Dr. Rachael Ainsworth works with our partners @jodrellbankobservatory @TheUniversityofManchester, tackling the data processing challenges that the SKA will pose - we caught up with her earlier to hear about her work! Take a look. #SKAscicon19

The international SKA science conference has kicked off! 300 astronomers from 20 countries have gathered in Cheshire, UK to discuss the latest SKA-related science. 🎥Watch Science Director Robert Braun & Chair of the Scientific Organising Committee Evan Keane introduce the meeting 👇
More information: http://skatel.org/scicon19_bv3ZA

This week we hosted a meeting on the SKA's history here at our global headquarters, involving many of the people who helped to get the project off the ground in its early years. It was an opportunity to reflect on how the SKA has grown from an idea developed by a small number of astrophysicists in the late 1980s, in to a huge global project! Former SKA Project Director Prof. Richard Schilizzi led the project from 2003 to 2011, and we sat down with him earlier to discuss how the SKA has evolved – take a look!

📽️ Our new video celebrating the signature of the SKA treaty in Rome and the creation of the SKA Observatory is out!
What do you need when faced with the biggest questions? Watch to find out!

Check out the latest single by progressive metal band Voyager Australia featuring the Murchison Radio astronomy Observatory in outback Western Australia (the future home of SKA-low) including our prototype antennas and the SKA precursor telescope ASKAP! 🎵🤘

Earlier this month the SKA Observatory Convention was signed in Rome – but what does this mean and what happens next? Who better to ask than our very own talented in-house legal team! They have been completely immersed in the treaty process in recent months, and while they're accustomed to doing their work behind the scenes, we've persuaded them to face the camera to explain it all. Here’s their beginner’s guide to the #SKAtreaty in just 90 seconds!

Congratulations to one of our TeamSKA Project Scientists Dr. Evan Keane who has been awarded the European Astronomical Society's 2019 MERAC Prize - awarded to recognise and support young European astronomers - for Observational Astrophysics for his work on radio transients & fast radio bursts!
Evan has worked all over the world investigating radio transients - events such as gamma ray bursts or supernovae, which are typically only visible for short periods of time. His research focuses on finding and using them to understand fundamental questions of physics.
Read more about the prize and Evan's career below: