On October 24 and 25, 2023, a meeting of the SKA Observatory Council, the SKAO Council, was held in Australia, bringing together all the representatives of the member states, including France.
On this occasion, the Council members were able to discover the SKA-Low site, deployed in the Murchison Desert, on the traditional lands of the Wajarri Yamaji aboriginal people.
SKA-Low, in Australia, is one of two telescopes in the SKA Observatory, the other being in South Africa.
This is the part of the instrument which, as its name suggests, will cover the "low frequency" part of the electromagnetic spectrum : between 50 and 350 MHz. With construction due to start in December 2022, the first 256 antennas have already been installed.
SKA-Low will provide unique capabilities for observing the Universe, enabling for example the study of the distribution of neutral hydrogen gas at the dawn of the cosmos, when the first light sources (stars, galaxies) began to form.
A French "éclaireur" instrument
Excitement is running high for all the SKA Observatory teams who, after years of hard work, are seeing their project become a reality.
This is particularly true in France, for the teams at Observatoire de Paris - PSL who, at the Nançay radio observatory, have built the NenuFAR radio telescope, the SKA-Low pathfinder instrument.
The 256 antennas installed are now being used for initial calibration tests. In this way, the behavior of this first station is being measured, just as has been done for NenuFAR over the last few years.
Au final, SKA-Low comptera plus de 130 000 antennes dans quelques années !