Sweden: SKA scientists make connections ready for future projects

BY ROBERT CUMMING (ONSALA SPACE OBSERVATORY, CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY)

With full membership in sight and contracts being signed, 2023 is a big year for Sweden in the SKA. This momentum was the backdrop for February’s national SKA science meeting, the first of the SKAO era, which brought together more than 60 people in person at Stockholm University, with more joining online.

“There is quite a bit of excitement in Sweden for the SKA project. That shows through the build-up of the SKA Regional Centre, and the growing collaboration and communication between institutes in Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala and elsewhere,” said Dr Kelley Hess, an astronomer at Chalmers University.

International guests A/Prof. Leah Morabito (Durham University), Prof. Jason Hessels (ASTRON/University of Amsterdam) and SKAO Science Director Dr Robert Braun showcased the potential of the SKA telescopes and how MeerKAT, LOFAR and other pathfinder facilities are taking us there.

The message was echoed in presentations by early-career scientists. Local PhD student Alexandra Le Reste’s work spans two Swedish research specialties, starburst galaxies and the Epoch of Reionisation, in which the SKA telescopes promise new breakthroughs.

“I think we’re on the edge of something really big. The observations that the SKA telescopes are going to enable are going to bring us so much more information about the Universe, especially the early Universe,” she said. The benefit of joining a global collaboration was another theme in many of the talks.

“The thing that I’m most excited about when the SKA telescopes come online is this global community of researchers. It gives you access to all of these amazing people who spend a lot of time working in radio data,” said PhD student Deepika Venkattu.

Prof. John Conway, director of Onsala Space Observatory, commented that the SKA project marks the end of “black belt” radio astronomy, that is a discipline which was mostly exclusively accessible to radio experts until now. Vast amounts of new data will be more than ever open to everyone, with the help of support staff and data archives, he explained.

A video report from the meeting, featuring more interviews, is available here: https://youtu.be/8i10UIWDzcw