Contact 07

Page 5

CAMBRIDGE SKALA ANTENNA BECOMES PART OF SOUTH POLE OBSERVATORY BY HILARY KAY (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER – UK SKA) As SKA construction activities start this year, the site of the SKA1-Low telescope in Western Australia will be increasingly peppered with the familiar SKALA4.1 antennas (See Contact Magazine Issue 4). An earlier version of these low-frequency antennas (SKALA2) has remarkably made its way to an even more remote, and equally environmentally challenging, region of the globe, the South Pole. A team from the University of Cambridge, who led the Antenna and LNA working group as part of the Dutch-led Low Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA) consortium, have formed a spinoff company, Cambridge ElectroMagnetic Technology Ltd (CEMTL), providing consultancy services building on the team’s experience in antenna design, low noise electronics, phased array systems and electromagnetic modelling. The company also supplies wideband antennas and low noise amplifiers, and has provided SKALA2 antennas for the PeV-Radio project at the South Pole, funded through a European Research Council grant and led by Dr. Frank Schröder at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Right: Model of a SKALA4 antenna, developed as part of the design work for the SKA-Low telescope.

The antennas are deployed at the IceTop cosmic-ray surface array of the international IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a revolutionary detector encompassing one cubic kilometre of ice, located near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The SKALA2 antennas will further increase the sky coverage of IceTop, to include the centre of our own galaxy. They will also enable a higher accuracy for the detection of atmospheric particle cascades, helping to shed light on their currently unknown origin. “We are thrilled to see SKALA antennas used in applications beyond astronomy”, says Dr Eloy de Lera Acedo, co-founder and director, CEMTL. “After leading the antenna design team in the consortium, we are excited to embark on this new adventure with Cambridge Electromagnetic Technology Ltd. and are now focused on expanding the impact of the SKALA technology in other markets.” Right: A SKALA2 antenna has made it all the way to the South Pole. Credit: Dr Frank Schröder, KIT, and Delaware University.

5


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

Articles inside

News from SKA pathfinder telescopes

13min
pages 27-32

Red sand in our shoes: The inspiring international story behind SKA-Low

22min
pages 8-13

SKA JOBS

2min
page 39

Cartoon corner

1min
pages 38-39

LOFAR community readies for sixth Data School

1min
page 37

East Asian SKA Science Workshop 2021

1min
page 37

Indo-French meeting for the promotion of advanced research, diversity and inclusion in multiwavelength astronomy

1min
page 36

Countdown to the 2021 SKA Science Conference

1min
page 36

Team SKA: Dr Anna Bonaldi

9min
pages 33-35

Life cycle of supermassive black hole revealed

2min
page 32

uGMRT probes stellar magnetospheres through study of stars with rare emission

2min
page 31

100M Radio Telescope Effelsberg: The first 50 years

2min
page 30

ASKAP continues countdown to full survey science

1min
page 29

ASKAP team wins prestigious American science prize

1min
page 28

Outcomes of MeerKAT call for observing proposals

1min
page 28

Cosmic beasts and where to find them

1min
page 27

When the brain meets the stars: Knowledge made visible to the naked eye

4min
pages 25-26

CARTA - A new astronomy visualisation tool for the era of Big Data

3min
page 24

In conversation: Dr Catherine Cesarsky and Prof. Philip Diamond

7min
pages 22-23

First Council meeting marks birth of SKAO

1min
page 21

Review season begins as preparations ramp up for procurement

2min
page 20

2 minutes with Hao Qiu - SKAO Postdoctoral Fellow

2min
page 20

Featured image - The eagle has landed: radio telescopes front and centre for the show

2min
pages 18-19

Let's talk about... SETI

11min
pages 14-17

The Spanish SRC prototype: Supporting the community beyond radio astronomy

2min
page 7

Europe's radio and optical astronomy communities team up in new EC-funded project

1min
page 6

Cambridge SKALA antenna becomes part of South Pole observatory

1min
page 5

SKA sychronisation technology leads to world's most stable laser transmission

1min
page 4

Foreword by Prof. Philip Diamond

2min
page 3

The cover

1min
page 1
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.