New Zealand Researchers Play Critical Role in Building World's Biggest Radio Telescope

New Zealand researchers will play a starring role in the construction of the largest radio telescope in the world, one of the biggest and most ambitious scientific projects of all time.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will make it possible for astronomers to look at the entire sky thousands of times faster than any other system in existence. Scientists also expect that the large telescope will help provide new information about the history of the universe.

The largest radio telescope will be stationed in Africa and Australia and will have several dishes and millions of dipole radio receptors. The new radio telescope is designed to be 100 times as sensitive as the existing telescopes. It will also feature an image resolution quality which is 50 times better than the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

New Zealand Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce said two groups of researchers from AUT University and Victoria University would be taking the lead in some of the most critical work in the multi-billion dollar radio telescope.

The New Zealand government will support the global scientific project by giving $1.7 million. Various Kiwi organisations will also provide funds worth $2.1 million.

The scientific project will make use of the knowledge and skills of over 350 scientists and engineers from 18 nations. More than a hundred institutions have invested in this project which presented New Zealand a chance to show the world its expertise in ICT and software development.

Groups around the world are analysing the design of the telescope since the project has entered the detailed design phase. Dr Andrew Ensor will be leading the design team working on the telescope's survey correlator which combines the signals coming from the receivers.

Victoria University's Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollit will lead a research group to work on a science data processor along with experts from New Zealand and other countries.

Dr Ensor said the Kiwi researchers will concentrate on computing to keep the project operational. He said the construction of the world's largest telescope was not the greatest challenge but the computing that combines all the signals from receivers around the world.