University helps map the universe

 

University of Manchester delivers high-speed data-crunching technology.

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As part of the project, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will be around 200 times bigger 100,000 times more powerful than the famous landmark Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. It will also allow astronomers to gather information on over one million square metres - the equivalent of around 200 football pitches.
 
The €38 million project known as known as SKADS will give astronomers the ability to probe the early universe, test Einstein’s theory of relativity, learn more about mysterious dark matter and energy – and even search for signs of alien life – among other possibilities.
 
Engineers in Manchester are working on a sophisticated all-digital system to process the information gathered by the giant telescope and turn the torrents of data into a detailed map of the sky.
 
Researchers in the schools of Physics and Astronomy and Electrical and Electronic Engineering are working on the technology for an ‘aperture array’, which will be composed of tens of thousands of small antenna fixed to the ground - the completed SKA will consist of around 250 aperture arrays.
 
Time delays will be used to match up the signals received by each antenna and turn them into a single large ‘beam.’
 
By adding up the signals in different ways, the proposed aperture array will allow many ‘beams’ to be created at the same time.
 
This new approach will allow many astronomers to look at the sky in different directions at the same time – adding to the effectiveness of the telescope and the financial investment.

An instrument of discovery

Professor Peter Wilkinson from The School of Physics and Astronomy and UK SKADS programme leader said: “The SKA is designed to be a discovery instrument. There will be a huge harvest of fundamental science from locating enormous numbers of distant galaxies using the faint radio emission from hydrogen gas. But this new telescope will be so big and will be able to operate in so many different ways that it’s bound to find things we haven’t anticipated. This is why the prospect of the SKA is so exciting.”
 
“IBM Research's participation in the SKA project is very exciting and the challenge of designing its data processing systems will bring a whole range of new ideas to our multi-core research," added David Cohn, director, Business Informatics, IBM Research.

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