News roundup

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-2.

Credit: Prof. Yutong Lu

It’s been a busy time for our engineering teams at SKAO and across the partnership, with both the Science Data Processor (SDP) and Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) consortia wrapping up their design and planning work. SDP, led by the University of Cambridge in the UK, involved close to 40 institutions in 11 countries, all focused on designing the SKA’s supercomputing “brain”. For AIV, led by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the task was to detail how and when the SKA’s many components from all over the world will arrive and be put together at both the sites.

SKA HQ has hosted several ministerial visits since the SKA Observatory Convention was signed in April, starting with South African Minister of Science and Technology Mmamoloko Kubayi- Ngubane. In the following weeks we also welcomed then-UK Science Minister Chris Skidmore MP, and China’s Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang. Extremely positive and fruitful discussions were held, focusing on the involvement and contribution of these countries into the project and the organisation going forward.

SKA Organisation welcomed its newest member, Germany’s prestigious research organisation the Max Planck Society, following a unanimous vote by the SKA Board of Directors. Chairperson of the SKA Board of Directors Dr. Catherine Cesarsky described the decision as “a deserved recognition of the significant contributions Germany has made to the SKA project over the years”.

There was science success for SKA precursor telescope ASKAP in Australia, where an Australian-led international team of astronomers used the 36-dish array to determine the precise location of a fast radio burst (FRB) for the first time. The cause of these powerful millisecond bursts of cosmic radio waves is unknown, but the ability to determine their exact location is a big leap towards solving the mystery. And finally, hot off the press, South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope has discovered giant radio bubbles at the centre of the Milky Way. We’ll be covering this story in the next issue of Contact.