Trans-continental radio astronomy demo to strengthen Australia’s bid for Square Kilometre Array

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 12 March 2009 09:33

Science - Space

In an effort to strengthen Australia’s bid to build the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth has demonstrated the national network co-ordination that is possible and to prove Australia’s capability to conduct transcontinental radio astronomy.

At an event it hosted last night, ICRAR demonstrated the high-speed transfer of data, via an AARNet trans-continental 10 Gbps connection to Perth from the CSIRO and University of Tasmania radio telescopes on Australia’s east coast.  The data transfer was processed in real-time on a Perth-based computer cluster located at ICRAR’s Curtin University of Technology node, using state-of-the-art software.
 
Professor Steven Tingay, ICRAR deputy director said the demonstration was the first time such high data-transfer speeds had been reached when transporting astronomic information from the east coast of Australia to the west.
 
“This event was designed to be a first step toward demonstrating the capabilities required for Australia to build the next generation radio telescope, the SKA, over a 3,000 kilometre continental area.”
 
The demonstration included the high-speed transfer of data to Perth, from CSIRO and University of Tasmania radio telescopes on Australia’s east coast, via an AARNet trans-continental 10 Gbps connection.  The data transfer was processed in real-time on a Perth-based computer cluster located at ICRAR’s Curtin University of Technology node, using state-of-the-art software.
 
Professor Tingay said the SKA was one of the most ambitious international science projects ever devised, and it was planned to be a radio telescope with 10,000 times greater discovery potential than any of the world’s existing telescopes.
 
“The goal for the SKA is to be ready for initial observations by 2016 and fully built by 2020.  The observations from the telescope will help to answer fundamental questions about the evolution of the universe.”

According to Professor Tingay the transfer speeds achieved during last night’s demonstration were close to 500 times faster than consumer broadband speeds, but, he said, “the SKA will require an improvement multiplied by a factor of several hundred on this data transfer speed, to support the science goals of the SKA.”

Professor Brian Boyle, CSIRO SKA director said Western Australia is an excellent location for future large scale radio astronomy infrastructure because of its remoteness and the clear, noise-free view of the rich Southern Hemisphere skies it offered astronomers.

Western Australian Minister for Science and Innovation Troy Buswell said the WA government had committed $20 million to help establish ICRAR as one of the key institutions that would support national and global collaborations and contribute to the development of technologies necessary to advance the project.

Australia and Southern Africa have been identified by the international astronomy community as suitable sites for the SKA.