Next stage of SKA Science Data Challenge 3 begins

BY DR ANNA BONALDI (SKAO)

The second part of SKA Science Data Challenge 3 is well underway, with more than 50 teams registered to take part over the next six months – an impressive number!

SDC3 focuses on the planned SKA-Low observations of the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR), a remote era of our Universe when the first stars and galaxies formed, and when hydrogen in the Universe transitioned from being neutral to being ionised. The highly technical task in this second part of the challenge, called SDC3 Inference, is to investigate the reionisation properties of the Universe using simulated neutral hydrogen observations.

Stage one of the challenge, SDC3 Foregrounds, completed in November 2023, required teams to “clean” the simulated SKA-Low data, removing the radio emission from our Milky Way and other galaxies, to reveal the much fainter EoR signal. Further analysis of the results has led to an amendment of the previously announced outcome, with the DOTSS21cm team now topping the leaderboard, followed by HIMALAYA.