Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1096093
16 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 MARCH 2019 FILM TECHONOLOGY World's largest radio telescope moves from concept to reality THE world's largest radio tel- escope hit a milestone this month as 15 countries, includ- ing Malta, met in Rome to set up a global intergovernmental body that will oversee and op- erate the gigantic Square Kilo- metre Array. Spanning three continents, the SKA's goal is to answer the more pressing questions of how the universe came to be in its present state, how galax- ies formed and evolved over the past 10 billion years, and whether humans are the only intelligent life we know of. The treaty, which establish- es the SKA Observatory and moves the concept closer to reality, was signed in Rome by Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the UK. Malta – which holds observ- er status through the Malta Council for Science and Tech- nology, which appointed astro- physicist Kristian Zarb Adami to sit on the board – was rep- resented at the ceremony by Malta's Ambassador to Italy Vanessa Frazier. Reacting, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said Malta was honoured to have played a role in what was undoubtedly a his- toric moment for astronomy. "The formation of this inter- governmental organisation highlights the importance of collaboration between differ- ent countries to develop the world's leading technology and scientific programmes," Bar- tolo said. Similar to CERN, the Euro- pean Organisation for Nuclear Research, the SKA will now be headquartered in the shadow of the iconic Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, Manchester, and its remit is to operate ra- dio telescopes in Australia and South Africa. Zarb Adami said: "The SKA heralds a new era in radio as- tronomy, but more than that, it is a dawn of a new type of international collaboration between countries all over the world, who are coming togeth- er to design the world's largest instrument." When completed in 2025, the SKA will be the largest scien- tific instrument on the planet producing vast amounts of da- ta for scientists to analyse. Maltese scientists have been involved in the design of the SKA since 2007 through Zarb Adami. His role is to lead the digital signal processing part of the telescope to ensure the signals collected by the instrument are processed in a way that en- sures the best scientific data is extracted. Through his post at the Insti- tute of Space Sciences and As- tronomy (ISSA) at the Univer- sity of Malta and his position at the University of Oxford, Prof. Zarb Adami and his colleagues have already installed the first prototypes of the SKA in the Australian desert. Over the next few years, the team of scientists will be focus- ing on understanding how best to deal with the data deluge the SKA will produce. So large are the data rates, that the SKA is building the world's largest supercomputer and employing cutting-edge Machine Learning and Artifi- cial Intelligence techniques to filter this information and spot patterns that might lead to the discovery of extraterrestrial in- telligence. The SKA is expected to oper- ate its telescopes over the next 50 years, imaging parts of the universe with unprecedented clarity and speed. Prof. Zarb Adami has already been se- lected to lead the design of the next generation instruments that will be installed on the SKA. "We don't know what the tel- escope will find, but what we are sure of is that it will open up a new window on the uni- verse and undoubtedly lead to discoveries that will inspire the scientists and engineers of our future. Future generations will talk about the SKA in the same breath as we talk about CERN and the European Space Agency." Alessio Magro and Riccardo Chiello (front, fourth and third from left respectively), members of Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) at the University of Malta during the installation of the first prototypes of the SKA in the Australian desert (Photo: ICRAR-Curtin University) Maltese scientists have been involved in the design of the SKA since 2007 through Prof. Kristian Zarb Adami